University  of  California  •  Berkeley 


The  Negro  in  the  South 

His  Economic  Progress  in  Relation  to 
His  Moral  and  Religious  Development 


Being  the  William  Levi  Bull 
Lectures  for  the  Year  1907 


By 
BOOKER  T.  WASHINGTON 

Of  the  Tuskeegee  Normal  and  Industrial  Institute 

and 
W.  E.  BURGHARDT  DuBOIS 

Of  the  Atlanta  University 


PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE  W.  JACOBS  &  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1907,  by 

GEORGE  W.  JACOBS  &  COMPANY 

Published,  June,  1907 


All  rights  reserved 
Printed  in  U.  S.  A. 


The  Letter  Establishing  the  Lectureship 

Bishop  Whitaker  presented  the  Letter  of  Endowment  of  the 
Lectureship  on  Christian  Sociology  from  Rev.  William  L. 
Bull  as  follows : 

For  many  years  it  has  been  my  earnest  desire  to  found  a 
Lectureship  on  Christian  Sociology,  meaning  thereby  the 
application  of  Christian  principles  to  the  Social,  Industrial, 
and  Economic  problems  of  the  time,  in  my  Alma  Mater,  the 
Philadelphia  Divinity  School.  My  object  in  founding  this 
Lectureship  is  to  secure  the  free,  frank,  and  full  consideration 
of  these  subjects,  with  special  reference  to  the  Christian 
aspects  of  the  question  involved,  which  have  heretofore,  in 
my  opinion,  been  too  much  neglected  in  such  discussion. 
It  would  seem  that  the  time  is  now  ripe  and  the  moment  an 
auspicious  one  for  the  establishment  of  this  Lectureship,  at 
least  tentatively. 

After  a  trial  of  three  years,  I  again  make  the  offer,  as  in 
my  letter  of  January  I,  1901,10  continue  these  Lectures 
for  a  period  of  three  years,  with  the  hope  that  they  may 
excite  such  an  interest,  particularly  among  the  undergraduates 
of  the  Divinity  School,  that  I  shall  be  justified,  with  the  ap 
proval  of  the  authorities  of  the  Divinity  School,  in  placing 
the  Lectureship  on  a  more  permanent  foundation. 

I  herewith  pledge  myself  to  contribute  the  sum  of  six 
hundred  dollars  annually,  for  a  period  of  three  years,  to  the 
payment  of  a  lecturer  on  Christian  Sociology,  whose  duty  it 
shall  be  to  deliver  a  course  of  not  less  than  four  lectures  to 


the  students  of"  the  Divinity  School,  either  at  the  school  or 
elsewhere,  as  may  be  deemed  most  advisable,  on  the  appli 
cation  of  Christian  principles  to  the  Social,  Industrial,  and 
Economic  problems  and  needs  of  the  times ;  the  said  lecturer 
to  be  appointed  annually  by  a  committee  of  five  members : 
the  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  Pennsylvania  ;  the  Dean  of  the 
Divinity  School ;  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Overseers,  who 
shall  at  the  same  time  be  an  Alumnus ;  and  two  others,  one 
of  whom  shall  be  myself  and  the  other  chosen  by  the  pre 
ceding  four  members  of  the  committee. 

Furthermore,  if  it  shall  be  deemed  desirable  that  the  Lec 
tures  shall  be  published,  I  pledge  myself  to  the  additional 
payment  of  from  one  to  two  hundred  dollars  for  such  purpose. 

To  secure  a  full,  frank,  and  free  consideration  of  the  ques 
tions  involved,  it  is  my  desire  that  the  opportunity  shall  be 
given  from  time  to  time  to  the  representatives  of  each  school 
of  economic  thought  to  express  their  views  in  these  Lectures. 

The  only  restriction  I  wish  placed  on  the  lecturer  is  that 
he  shall  be  a  believer  in  the  moral  teachings  and  principles 
of  the  Christian  Religion  as  the  true  solvent  of  our  Social, 
Industrial,  and  Economic  problems.  Of  course,  it  is  my 
intention  that  a  new  lecturer  shall  be  appointed  by  the  com 
mittee  each  year,  who  shall  deliver  the  course  of  Lectures  for 
the  ensuing  year. 

WILLIAM  LEVI  BULL. 


Contents 

I.    THE  ECONOMIC  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 

NEGRO  EACE  IN  SLAVERY  ...        7 
By  Booker  T.  Washington 

II.    THE  ECONOMIC  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 

NEGRO  EACE  SINCE  ITS  EMANCIPATION     43 
By  Booker  T.  Washington 

III.  THE   ECONOMIC   EEVOLUTION  IN  THE 

SOUTH 77 

By  W.  E.  Burghardt  DuBois 

IV.  EELIGION  IN  THE  SOUTH       .        .        .    123 

By  W.  E.  Burghardt  DuBois 

NOTES  TO  CHAPTERS  III  AND  IV  .  193 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  ECONOMIC  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 
NEGEO  EACE  IN  SLAVEEY 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    ECONOMIC    DEVELOPMENT    OF   THE  NEGRO 
EACE   IN   SLAVERY 

WE  are  now,  I  think,  far  enough  re 
moved  from  the  period  of  slavery  to  be  able 
to  study  the  influence  of  that  institution  ob 
jectively  rather  than  subjectively.  Surely 
if  any  Negro  who  was  a  part  of  the  institu 
tion  itself  can  do  so,  the  remaining  portion 
of  the  American  people  ought  to  be  able  to 
do  so,  whether  they  live  at  the  North  or  at 
the  South. 

My  subject  naturally  leads  me  to  a  dis 
cussion  of  the  Negro  as  he  was  in  slavery. 
We  must  all  acknowledge,  whatever  else  re 
sulted  from  slavery  that,  first  of  all,  it  was 
the  economic  element  involved  that  brought 
the  Negro  to  America,  and  it  was  largely 
this  consideration  that  held  the  race  in 
slavery  for  a  period  of  about  245  years. 


10  The  Negro  in  the  South 

But,  in  this  discussion,  I  am  not  to  consider 
the  economic  value  of  the  Negro  as  a  slave, 
as  such,  but  only  the  influence  of  his  in 
dustrial  training  while  in  slavery  in  the 
development  of  his  moral  and  religious  life. 

In  my  opinion,  it  requires  no  little  effort 
on  the  part  of  a  man  who  was  once  himself 
a  slave  to  be  able  to  admit  this.  If  any 
Negro  who  was  a  part  of  the  institution  of 
slavery  itself  can  so  far  rid  himself  of  the 
prejudices  of  the  same,  it  seems  to  me  other 
people,  living  in  whatever  section,  should  be 
able  to  do  so. 

I  have  been  a  slave  once  in  my  life — a 
slave  in  body.  But  I  long  since  resolved 
that  no  inducement  and  no  influence  would 
ever  make  me  a  slave  in  soul,  in  my  love 
for  humanity,  and  in  my  search  for  truth. 

At  the  same  time  slaves  were  being 
brought  to  the  shores  of  Virginia  from  their 
native  land,  Africa,  the  woods  of  Virginia 
were  swarming  with  thousands  of  another 
dark-skinned  race.  The  question  naturally 


The  Economic  Development          n 

arises  :  Why  did  the  importers  of  Negro 
slaves  go  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  going 
thousands  of  miles  for  a  dark-skinned  peo 
ple  to '  hew  wood  and  draw  water  for  the 
whites,  when  they  had  right  among  them 
a  people  of  another  race  who  could  have 
answered  the  purpose  ?  The  answer  is  that 
the  Indian  was  tried  and  found  wanting  in 
the  commercial  qualities  which  the  Negro 
seemed  to  possess.  The  Indian,  as  a  race, 
would  not  submit  to  slavery  and  in  those 
instances  where  he  was  tried,  as  a  slave,  his 
labor  was  not  profitable  and  he  was  found 
unable  to  stand  the  physical  strain  of 
slavery.  As  a  slave,  the  Indian  died  in 
large  numbers.  This  was  true  in  San  Do 
mingo  and  in  other  parts  of  the  American 
continent. 

The  two  races,  the  Indian  and  the  Negro, 
have  been  often  compared  to  the  disadvan 
tage  of  the  Negro.  It  is  often  said  of  the 
Negro  that  he  is  an  imitative  race.  That,  in 
a  large  degree,  is  true.  That  element  has 


1 2  The  Negro  in  the  South 

its  disadvantages  and  it  also  has  its  advan 
tages.  Very  often  the  Negro  imitates  the 
worst  element  in  the  white  man ;  on  the 
other  hand  I  believe  that  the  masses  of  our 
people  imitate  the  best  they  find  in  the 
white  man. 

I  have  said  more  than  once  that  one  of 
the  unfortunate  conditions  of  the  Negro  in 
the  North  is  that, — because  of  the  large  pro 
portion  of  our  people  who  are  in  menial 
service,  their  duties  bring  them  in  contact 
with  the  worst.  They,  for  example,  are 
waiters  in  clubs  and  in  various  organiza 
tions,  and  being  engaged  in  that  capacity 
makes  it  necessary  for  them  to  touch  the 
white  man  at  his  weakest  point.  In  the 
city  of  Philadelphia,  there  are  hundreds,  I 
do  not  suppose  I  should  exaggerate  if  I 
were  to  say  thousands,  who  are  serving  the 
white  man  as  a  waiter  in  some  club  or 
similar  organization.  When  that  white 
man  was  at  work  in  his  factory,  in  his 
counting-room,  in  his  bank,  he  was  far  re- 


The  Economic  Development         13 

moved  from  him.  When  he  was  at  his  best 
the  Negro  did  not  come  into  touch  with 
him.  In  the  evening  when  he  lays  aside 
the  working  dress,  takes  matters  easy,  and 
gets  his  cigar  and  perhaps  champagne,  the 
Negro  comes  into  contact  with  him,  not  to 
an  advantage,  but  at  his  weakest  point 
rather  than  at  his  strongest. 

In  the  South,  as  in  most  parts  of  Amer 
ica,  during  slavery  and  after,  the  Negro  has 
gotten  something  from  the  white  man  that 
has  made  him  more  valuable  as  a  citizen. 
In  most  cases  he  imitates  the  best  rather 
than  the  worst.  For  example,  you  never 
see  a  Negro  braiding  his  hair  in  the  same 
way  as  a  Chinaman  braids  his,  but  he  cuts 
his  like  the  white  man.  The  Negro  is  seek 
ing  out  the  highest  and  best  as  to  quality. 

It  has  been  more  than  once  stated  that 
the  Indian  proved  himself  the  superior  race 
in  not  submitting  to  slavery.  We  shall  see 
about  this.  In  this  respect  it  may  be  that 
the  Indian  secured  a  temporary  advantage  in 


14  The  Negro  in  the  South 

so  far  as  race  feeling  or  prejudice  is  con 
cerned  ;  I  mean  by  this  that  he  escaped  the 
badge  of  servitude  which  has  fastened  itself 
upon  the  Negro, — not  only  upon  the  Negro 
in  America,  but  upon  that  race  wherever 
found,  for  the  known  commercial  value  of 
the  Negro  has  made  him  a  subject  of  traffic 
in  other  portions  of  the  globe  during  many 
centuries. 

The  Indian  refused  to  submit  to  bondage 
and  to  learn  the  white  man's  ways.  The  re 
sult  is  that  the  greater  portion  of  the  Amer 
ican  Indians  have  disappeared,  the  greater 
portion  of  those  who  remain  are  not  civi 
lized.  The  Negro,  wiser  and  more  endur 
ing  than  the  Indian,  patiently  endured 
slavery ;  and  contact  with  the  white  man 
has  given  him  a  civilization  vastly  superior 
to  that  of  the  Indian. 

The  Indian  and  the  Negro  met  on  the 
American  continent  for  the  first  time  at 
Jamestown,  in  1619.  Both  were  in  the 
darkest  barbarism.  There  were  twenty 


The  Economic  Development          15 

Negroes  and  thousands  of  Indians.  At 
the  present  time  there  are  between  nine  and 
ten  million  Negroes  and  two  hundred  and 
eighty-four  thousand  and  seventy-nine  In 
dians.  The  annual  tax  upon  the  Govern 
ment  on  account  of  the  Indian  is  $14,236,- 
078.71  (1905) ;  the  cost  from  1789  to  1902, 
inclusive,  reached  the  sum  of  $389,282,- 
361,00.  The  one  in  this  case  not  only  de 
creased  in  numbers  and  failed  to  add  any 
thing  to  the  economic  value  of  his  country, 
but  has  actually  proven  a  charge  upon  the 
state. 

The  Negro  seems  to  be  about  the  only 
race  that  has  been  able  to  look  the  white 
man  in  the  face  during  the  long  period  of 
years  and  live — not  only  live,  but  multiply. 
The  Negro  has  not  only  done  this,  but  he 
has  had  the  good  sense  to  get  something 
from  the  white  man  at  every  point  where 
he  has  touched  him — something  that  has 
made  him  a  stronger  and  a  better  race. 

Let  me  say  in  the  beginning  that  nothing 


16  The  Negro  in  the  South 

which  I  shall  say  should  be  taken  as  an  en 
dorsement  of  the  enslavement  of  my  race. 
The  experience  of  the  world's  civilization 
teaches  that  the  final  and  net  result  of 
slavery  is  bad — bad  for  the  enslaved,  and 
perhaps  worse  for  the  enslaver.  If  permit 
ted  a  choice,  I  think  I  should  prefer  being 
the  first  to  being  the  last.  But  in  the  case  of 
the  Negro  in  America  no  one,  willing  to  be 
frank  and  fair,  can  fail  to  see  that  the  Negro 
did  get  certain  benefits  out  of  slavery  ;  at  the 
same  time  he  was,  as  I  have  stated,  harmed. 
But  in  this  connection  we  must  deal  with 
the  facts  and  not  with  prejudice,  either  for 
or  against  the  race. 

Let  me  make  this  statement  with  which 
you  may  or  may  not  agree  :  In  my  opinion, 
there  cannot  be  found  in  the  civilized  or 
uncivilized  world  ten  millions  of  Negroes 
whose  economic,  educational,  moral  and  re 
ligious  life  is  so  advanced  as  that  of  the  ten 
millions  of  Negroes  within  the  United 
States.  If  this  statement  be  true,  let  us  find 


The  Economic  Development          17 

the  cause  thereof,  especially  as  regards  the 
Negro's  moral  and  Christian  growth.  In 
doing  so,  let  credit  be  given  wherever  it  is 
due,  whether  to  the  Northern  white  man, 
the  Southern  white  man,  or  the  Negro  him 
self.  If,  as  stated,  the  ten  millions  of  black 
people  in  the  United  States  have  excelled 
all  the  other  groups  of  their  race-type  in 
moral  and  Christian  growth,  let  us  trace 
the  cause,  and  in  doing  so  we  may  get  some 
light  and  information  that  will  be  of  value 
in  dealing  with  the  Negro  race  in  America 
and  elsewhere,  and  in  elevating  and  Chris 
tianizing  other  races. 

In  order  to  determine  the  influence  of 
economic  or  industrial  training  upon  the 
moral  and  Christian  life  of  the  Negro,  we 
must  begin  with  slavery  and  trace  the 
development  of  the  black  man,  noticing  in 
a  brief  manner  his  development  through 
slavery  to*  freedom,  and  to  the  present 
time. 

This  involves,  then,  the  period  of  slavery, 


i8  The  Negro  in  the  South 

and  the  period  of  freedom.  To  begin  with, 
let  me  repeat  that  at  first,  at  least,  the 
underlying  object  of  slavery  was  an  eco 
nomic,  and  an  industrial  one.  The  climatic 
and  other  new  conditions  required  that  the 
slave  should  wear  clothing,  a  thing,  for 
the  most  part,  new  to  him.  It  has  per 
haps  already  occurred  to  you  that  one  of 
the  conditions  requisite  for  the  Christian 
life  is  clothing.  So  far  as  I  know,  Chris 
tianity  is  the  only  religion  that  makes  the 
wearing  of  clothes  one  of  its  conditions.  A 
naked  Christian  is  impossible — and  I  may 
add  that  I  have  little  faith  in  a  hungry 
Christian. 

Some  years  ago  we  were  holding  the 
Tuskeegee  Annual  Negro  Conference,  and  I 
remember  on  several  occasions  there  was 
one  old  fellow  who  tried  to  get  the  floor 
without  success.  He  tried  continually  to 
get  recognition  from  the  chair,  and,  finally, 
was  recognized.  He  said :  "  Mr.  Wash 
ington,  we's  making  great  progress  in  our 


The  Economic  Development          19 

community.  It  is  not  the  same  as  it  used 
to  be.  We's  making  great  progress.  We's 
getting  to  the  point  where  nearly  all  the 
people  in  my  community  owns  their  own 
pigs."  I  asked  him  why  he  was  so  much 
interested  in  his  neighbors  owning  their 
own  pigs.  He  said  :  "I  feel  that  when  all 
my  neighbors  own  their  own  pigs,  I  can 
always  sleep  better  every  night."  There  is 
a  good  deal  of  philosophy  underlying  that 
remark. 

The  economic  element  not  only  made  it 
necessary  that  the  Negro  slave  should  be 
clothed  for  the  sake  of  decency  and  in 
order  to  preserve  his  health,  but  the  same 
considerations  made  it  necessary  that  he  be 
housed  and  taught  the  comforts  to  be  found 
in  a  home.  Within  a  few  months,  then, 
after  the  arrival  of  the  Negro  in  America, 
he  was  wearing  clothes  and  living  in  a 
house— no  inconsiderable  step  in  the  di 
rection  of  morality  and  Christianity.  True, 
the  Negro  slave  had  worn  some  kind  of 


20  The  Negro  in  the  South 

garment  and  occupied  some  kind  of  hut 
before  he  was  brought  to  America,  but  he 
had  made  little  progress  in  the  improve 
ment  of  his  garments  or  in  the  kind  of  hut 
he  inhabited.  As  we  shall  perhaps  see 
later,  his  introduction  into  American 
slavery  was  the  beginning  of  real  growth 
in  the  two  directions  under  consideration. 

There  is  another  important  element.  In 
his  native  country,  owing  to  climatic  con 
ditions,  and  also  because  of  his  few  simple 
and  crude  wants,  the  Negro,  before  coming 
to  America,  had  little  necessity  to  labor. 
You  have,  perhaps,  read  the  story,  that  it 
is  said  might  be  true  in  certain  portions  of 
Africa,  of  how  the  native  simply  lies  down 
on  his  back  under  a  banana-tree  and  falls 
asleep  with  his  mouth  open.  The  banana 
falls  into  his  mouth  while  he  is  asleep  and 
when  he  wakes  up  he  finds  that  all  he  has 
to  do  is  to  chew  it — he  has  his  meal  already 
served. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that,  in  most 


The  Economic  Development          21 

cases,  the  element  of  compulsion  entered 
into  the  labor  of  the  slave,  and  the  main 
object  sought  was  the  enrichment  of  the 
owner,  the  American  Negro  had,  under 
the  regime  of  slavery,  his  first  lesson  in 
anything  like  continuous,  progressive,  sys 
tematic  labor.  I  have  said  that  two  of  the 
signs  of  Christianity  are  clothes  and  houses, 
and  now  I  add  a  third,  "  work." 

In  the  early  days  of  slavery  the  labor 
performed  by  the  slave  was  naturally  of  a 
crude  and  primitive  kind.  With  the 
growth  of  civilization  came  a  demand  for  a 
higher  kind  of  labor,  hence  the  Negro  slave 
was  soon  demanded  as  a  skilled  laborer,  as 
well  as  for  ordinary  farm  and  common 
labor.  It  soon  became  evident  that  from  an 
economic  point  of  view  it  paid  to  give  the 
Negro  just  as  high  a  degree  of  skill  as  pos 
sible — the  more  skill,  the  more  dollars. 
When  an  ordinary  slave  sold  for,  say  seven 
hundred  dollars,  a  skilled  mechanic  would 
easily  bring  on  the  auction  block  from  four- 


22  The  Negro  in  the  South 

teen  hundred  to  two  thousand  dollars.  It 
is  strangely  true  that  when  a  black  man 
would  bring  two  thousand  dollars  a  white 
man  would  not  bring  fifty  cents. 

As  the  slave  grew  in  the  direction  of 
skilled  labor,  he  was  given  an  increased 
amount  of  freedom.  This  was  practiced  by 
some  owners  to  such  an  extent  that  the 
skilled  mechanic  was  permitted  to  "  hire  " 
his  own  time,  working  where  and  for  whom 
he  pleased,  and  for  what  wage,  on  condition 
that  he  pay  his  owner  so  much  per  month 
or  year,  as  agreed  upon.  Not  a  few  masters 
found  that  this  policy  paid  better  than  the 
one  of  close  personal  supervision ;  many 
female  slaves  were  trained  not  only  in  ordi 
nary  house  duties,  but  on  every  large  planta 
tion  there  was  at  least  one  high  class  seam 
stress. 

I  have  made  a  search  but  have  not  yet 
been  able  to  find  a  single  case  of  abuse  of 
confidence,  and  the  policy  to  wrhich  I  have 
referred  was  practiced  very  largely  in  Vir- 


The  Economic  Development         23 

ginia  and  especially  in  West  Virginia — the 
policy  of  permitting  those  slaves  who  were 
skilled  laborers  to  work  for  whom  they 
pleased,  on  condition  that  they  pay  their 
masters  a  fixed  sum  each  month  or  each 
year.  I  have  never  yet  heard  of  a  single 
case  of  failure  at  the  end  of  the  month  or  at 
the  end  of  the  year  to  bring  and  place  in 
his  master's  hands  the  stipulated  sum  of 
money. 

A  discussion  of  this  subject  calls  to  mind 
one  of  those  curious  changes  in  public 
opinion  and  custom  with  regard  to  races 
which  often  occur  in  the  United  States. 
At  the  period  to  which  I  am  now  referring, 
a  great  number  of  the  Negroes  in  the  South 
were  compelled  to  follow  a  trade,  and  they 
seem  to  have  no  difficulty  in  pursuing  trades 
there  to-day.  In  the  North  where  the  agi 
tation  for  the  Negro's  freedom  began,  it 
is  in  most  cases  difficult,  and  often  impos 
sible,  for  a  black  man  to  find  an  opportunity 
to  work  at  any  kind  of  skilled  labor.  I 


24  The  Negro  in  the  South 

sometimes  wonder  which  man  is  the  greater 
sinner, — the  man  who  by  force  compels  the 
Negro  to  work  without  pay,  or  the  man 
who  by  physical  force  and  through  the 
force  of  public  sentiment  prevents  the 
Negro  from  working  for  him,  when  he  is 
ready,  willing,  and  fit  to  do  so. 

I  do  not  overstate  the  matter  when  I  say 
that  I  am  quite  sure  that  in  one  county  in 
the  South  during  the  days  of  slavery  there 
were  more  colored  youths  being  taught 
trades  than  there  are  members  of  my  race 
now  being  taught  trades  in  any  of  the  larger 
cities  of  the  North. 

Before  I  go  further,  I  ought,  in  justice,  to 
add  that  as  slavery  spread  and  the  owners 
came  to  know  their  slaves  better,  there  ap 
peared  in  nearly  every  section  of  the  South, 
especially  in  Virginia  and  South  Carolina,  a 
considerable  number  of  slave-holders  who 
rose  above  the  mere  idea  of  economic  and 
selfish  gain  ;  and  thus,  through  the  medium 
of  slavery,  the  opportunity  to  train  the 


The  Economic  Development         25 

Negro  in  morality  and  Christianity  pre 
sented  itself  in  many  sections  of  the  South. 
During  the  days  of  slavery  regular  religious 
services  were  provided  for  the  slaves,  the 
same  minister  who  served  the  white  con 
gregation  preached  to  the  blacks.  In  some 
of  the  most  aristocratic  families,  the  Negro 
children  were  taught  in  the  Sunday-school ; 
this  was  true  of  the  Lees  and  Jacksons  of 
Virginia,  and  of  the  family  of  Bishop  Capers 
and  other  men  of  that  type  in  South 
Carolina. 

At  the  end  of  the  period  of  slavery,  about 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years,  the  Negro  race 
as  a  whole  had  learned,  as  I  have  stated,  to 
wear  clothes,  to  live  in  a  home,  to  work 
with  a  reasonable  degree  of  regularity  and 
system,  and  a  few  had  learned  to  work 
with  a  high  degree  of  skill.  Not  only  this, 
the  race  had  reached  the  point  where,  from 
speaking  scores  of  dialects,  it  had  learned  to 
speak  intelligently  the  English  language. 
It  had  also  a  fair  knowledge  of  American 


26  The  Negro  in  the  South 

civilization  and  had  changed  from  a  pagan 
into  a  Christian  race.  Further,  at  the  be 
ginning  of  his  freedom,  the  Negro  found 
himself  in  possession  of — in  fact  had  a 
monopoly  of — the  common  and  skilled 
labor  throughout  the  South  ;  not  only  this, 
but,  by  reason  of  the  contact  of  whites  and 
blacks  during  slavery,  the  Negro  found 
business  and  commercial  careers  open  to 
him  at  the  beginning  of  his  freedom. 

Such  conditions  were  unusual  in  the  case 
of  a  race  that  had  been  occupying  so  low  a 
place  in  the  civilization  of  another  people. 
They  resulted  from  the  fact  that  in  slavery 
when  the  master  wanted  a  pair  of  shoes 
made,  he  went  to  the  Negro  shoemaker  for 
those  shoes ;  when  he  wanted  a  suit  of 
clothes,  he  went  to  the  Negro  tailor  for 
those  clothes ;  and  when  he  wanted  a  house 
built,  he  consulted  the  Negro  carpenter  and 
mason  about  the  plans  and  cost — thus  the 
two  races  learned  to  do  business  with  each 
other.  It  was  an  easy  step  from  this  to  a 


The  Economic  Development         27 

higher  plane  of  business,  hence  immediately 
after  the  war  the  Negro  found  that  he  could 
become  a  dry  goods  merchant,  a  grocery 
merchant,  start  a  bank,  go  into  real  estate 
dealing,  and  secure  the  trade  not  only  of 
his  own  people,  but  also  of  the  white  man, 
who  was  glad  to  do  business  with  him  and 
thought  nothing  of  it. 

In  my  own  town  of  Tuskeegee  there 
is  a  colored  merchant  who,  not  excepting 
any  other  merchant,  has  the  largest  trade 
in  that  county  in  retail  groceries,  and  in 
a  recent  conversation  with  him  he  said 
that  for  thirty-five  years  his  customers  had 
been  among  the  best  white  families  of  the 
county.  More  than  a  dozen  times  have  I 
met  the  man  who  owned  this  Negro  in  the 
days  of  slavery  and  he  expressed  himself  as 
more  than  pleased  that  his  former  slave 
had  attained  the  honor  of  being  the  most 
successful  grocery  dealer  in  the  town  of 
Tuskeegee. 

You  would  be  surprised,  if  you  were  to 


28  The  Negro  in  the  South 

inquire  into  the  facts,  to  know  how  the 
Negro  has  grown  in  this  direction.  In  the 
Southern  states  there  are  one  hundred  and 
fifteen  drug  stores  owned  by  Negroes.  In 
Anniston,  Alabama,  there  are  two  large 
drug  stores  owned  by  black  people,  and  in 
one  section  a  wholesale  drug  store  owned 
and  operated  successfully  by  a  black  man. 
The  Negro  who  to-day  owns  and  operates 
that  large  wholesale  drug  store,  selling 
drugs  to  the  white  as  well  as  colored  retail 
druggists,  was  a  slave,  I  think,  until  he  was 
twelve  or  fifteen  years  of  age.  It  is  inter 
esting  to  know  that  more  banks  have  been 
organized  in  the  last  three  years  in  the 
state  of  Mississippi  than  ever  before.  There 
have  been  ten  banks  organized  since  Varda- 
man  became  governor  of  the  state. 

For  the  reasons  I  have  mentioned,  the 
Negro  in  the  South  has  not  only  found  a 
practically  free  field  in  the  commercial 
world,  but  in  the  world  of  skilled  labor. 
Such  a  field  is  not  open  to  him  in  such  a 


The  Economic  Development         29 

degree  in  any  other  part  of  the  United 
States,  or  perhaps  in  the  world,  as  is  open 
in  the  South.  All  of  this  has  had  a 
tremendously  strong  bearing  in  developing 
the  Negro's  moral  and  Christian  life. 

In  proportion  to  their  numbers,  I  ques 
tion  whether  so  large  a  proportion  of  any 
other  race  are  members  of  some  Christian 
Church  as  is  true  of  the  American  Negro. 
In  many  cases  their  practical  ideas  of 
Christianity  are  crude,  and  their  daily 
practice  of  religion  is  far  from  satisfactory ; 
still  the  foundation  is  laid,  upon  which  can 
be  builded  a  rational,  practical  and  helpful 
Christian  life. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  value  of  the  eco 
nomic  and  industrial  training  of  the  Negro  : 
If  one  chooses,  let  him  try  this  plan  which 
I  have  tried  on  a  good  many  occasions. 
Go  into  any  village  or  town,  North  or  South, 
enter  their  Baptist  and  Methodist  churches 
— for  the  most  part  they  belong  to  the  Bap 
tist  Church — and  ask  their  pastors  to  point 


30  The  Negro  in  the  South 

out  to  you  the  most  reliable,  progressive  and 
leading  colored  man  in  the  community,  the 
man  who  is  most  given  to  putting  his  relig 
ious  teachings  into  practice  in  his  daily  life, 
and  in  a  majority  of  cases  one  will  have 
pointed  out  to  him  a  Negro  who  learned  a 
trade  or  got  some  special  economic  training 
during  the  days  of  slavery, — in  all  proba 
bility  an  individual  who  has  become  the 
owner  of  a  little  piece  of  land,  who  lives  in 
his  own  house. 

Now  what  lessons  for  the  work  that  is  be 
fore  us  can  you  and  I  learn  from  what  I 
have  attempted  to  say?  The  lesson  sug 
gested  in  the  elevation  of  the  black  race  in 
America  will  apply  with  equal  force,  in  my 
opinion,  to  the  inculcating  of  moral  and 
Christian  principles  into  any  race,  regard 
less  of  color,  that  is  in  the  same  relative 
stage  of  civilization.  Here  let  me  add  that 
in  all  my  advocacy  of  the  value  of  indus 
trial  training  I  have  never  done  so  because 
my  people  are  black  ;  I  would  advocate  the 


The  Economic  Development          31 

same  kind  of  training  for  any  race  that  is 
on  the  same  plane  of  civilization  as  our  peo 
ple  are  found  on  at  the  present  time. 

But  as  to  the  lesson  which  may  prove  of 
direct  interest,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned. 
In  the  old  days,  the  method  of  converting 
the  heathen  to  Christianity  was  very  largely 
abstract.  The  Bible  was,  in  most  cases,  the 
only  argument.  In  the  conversion  of  the 
heathen  to  Christianity  or  in  raising  the 
standard  of  moral  and  Christian  living  for 
any  people,  I  argue  that  in  the  use  of  the  eco 
nomic  element  and  the  teaching  of  the  indus 
tries  we  should  be  guided  by  the  same  rules 
that  are  now  used  in  the  most  advanced 
methods  of  ordinary  school-teaching — that 
is,  to  begin  with  the  known  and  gradually 
advance  to  the  unknown  ;  we  should  ad 
vance  from  the  concrete  to  the  abstract.  In 
doing  this,  industrial  education,  it  seems  to 
me,  furnishes  a  tremendously  good  oppor 
tunity. 

Let  me  illustrate  :     Not  long  ago  a  mis- 


32  The  Negro  in  the  South 

sionary  who  was  going  into  a  foreign  field 
very  kindly  asked  of  me  advice  as  to  how 
he  should  proceed  to  convert  the  people  to 
Christianity.  I  asked  him,  first,  upon  what 
the  people  depended  mostly  for  a  living  in 
the  country  where  he  was  to  labor ;  he  re 
plied  that  for  the  most  part  they  were  en 
gaged  in  sheep  raising.  I  said  to  him  at 
once  that  if  I  were  going  into  that  country 
as  a  missionary,  I  should  begin  my  efforts 
by  teaching  the  people  to  raise  more  sheep 
and  better  sheep.  If  he  could  convince 
them  that  Christianity  could  raise  more 
sheep  and  better  sheep  than  paganism,  he 
would  at  once  get  a  hold  upon  their  sym 
pathy  and  confidence  in  a  way  he  could  not 
do  by  following  more  abstract  methods  of 
converting  them. 

The  average  man  can  discern  more 
quickly  the  difference  between  good  sheep 
and  bad  sheep,  than  he  can  the  difference 
between  Unitarianism  and  Trinitarianism. 

If  the  Christian  missionary  can  gradually 


The  Economic  Development          33 

teach  the  heathen  how  to  build  a  better 
house  than  he  has  used,  how  to  make  better 
clothes,  how  to  grow,  prepare  and  secure 
better  food  for  his  daily  meals,  the  mission 
ary  will  have  gone  a  long  way,  may  I  re 
peat,  toward  securing  the  confidence  of 
the  heathen  and  will  have  laid  the  founda 
tion  in  this  concrete  manner  for  interesting 
the  pagan  in  a  higher  moral  life  and  in  get 
ting  him  to  appreciate  the  difference  be 
tween  the  heathen  life  and  the  Christian 
life.  In  teaching  the  child  to  read  we  use 
the  objective  method  ;  in  converting  the 
heathen  we  should  employ  the  same  method 
— and  this  means  the  economic  or  indus 
trial  method. 

Some  six  years  ago  a  group  of  Tuskeegee 
graduates  and  former  students  went  to 
Africa  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  natives 
in  a  certain  territory  of  West  Africa  train 
ing  in  methods  of  raising  American  cotton. 
They  did  not  go  there  primarily  as  mission 
aries,  nor  was  their  chief  end  the  conver- 


34  The  Negro  in  the  South 

sion  of  these  pagans  to  Christianity.  Natu 
rally,  they  began  their  work  by  training  the 
natives  how  to  cultivate  their  land  differ 
ently,  how  and  when  to  plant  the  crop,  and 
when  to  harvest  it,  and  gradually  taught 
them  how  to  use  a  small  hand  gin  in  get 
ting  the  cotton  ready  for  market. 

Largely  through  the  leadership  of  this 
group  of  Tuskeegee  students,  there  is  shipped 
from  this  section  of  Africa  to  the  Berlin 
market  each  year  many  bales  of  cotton. 
The  natives  have  learned  through  the 
teaching  of  these  men  to  grow  more  cotton 
and  better  cotton.  They  have  learned  to 
use  their  time,  have  learned  that  by  work 
ing  systematically  and  regularly  they  can 
increase  their  income  and  thus  add  to  their 
independence  and  supply  their  wants.  Not 
only  this,  but  in  order  that  these  people 
might  be  fitted  for  continuous  and  regular 
service  in  the  cotton  field,  their  houses  have 
been  improved  and  the  natives  have  been 
taught  how  to  take  better  care  of  their 


The  Economic  Development          35 

bodies.  In  a  word,  during  the  years  that 
these  Tuskeegee  people  have  been  in  the 
community  they  have  improved  the  entire 
economic,  industrial,  and  physical  life  of 
the  people  in  this  immediate  territory. 

The  result  is,  as  one  of  the  men  stated  on 
his  last  visit  to  Tuskeegee,  there  is  little 
difficulty  now  in  getting  the  children  of 
these  people  to  attend  Sunday-school  and 
the  older  people  to  attend  church  ;  in  fact,  in 
a  natural,  logical  manner  they  seem  to  have 
been  converted  to  the  idea  that  the  religion 
practiced  by  these  Tuskeegee  men  is  superior 
to  their  own.  They  believe  this  firmly,  be 
cause  they  have  seen  that  better  results 
have  been  produced  through  the  Christian 
influence  of  these  Tuskeegee  men  than  has 
been  produced  when  they  had  no  such 
leadership.  If  these  Tuskeegee  people  had 
gone  there  as  missionaries  of  the  old  type 
and  had  confined  themselves  to  abstract 
teachings  of  the  Bible  alone,  it  would  have 
required  many  years  to  have  brought  about 


36  The  Negro  in  the  South 

the  results  which  have  been  attained  within 
a  few  years. 

Some  time  ago  in  Montgomery,  Alabama, 
there  was  a  church,  attended  by  members  of 
my  race,  which  happened  to  be  located  not 
very  far  from  the  residence  of  a  white 
family.  The  cook  who  served  in  this  white 
family  attended  this  church  to  which  I  re 
fer.  The  members  of  the  church  made 
considerable  noise  in  their  singing,  shout 
ing,  and  praying,  and  after  a  while  the 
white  family  grew  rather  exasperated  be 
cause  of  this  noise.  One  Sunday  the 
church  services  were  prolonged  until  an  un 
usual  hour  and  there  was  more  noise  than 
usual ;  so  the  next  morning  when  the  cook 
came,  the  lady  of  the  house  called  her  into 
the  sitting-room,  and  said  :  "  Jane,  why  in 
the  world  do  you  make  so  much  noise  in  your 
worship,  in  your  singing,  praying,  and 
shouting?  Why  don't  you  be  orderly, 
quiet,  and  systematic  in  your  worship? 
Why,  Jane,  in  the  Bible  we  read  that  in 


The  Economic  Development         37 

the  building  of  Solomon's  Temple,  no  noise 
pervaded  the  silence  of  the  builders.  Why 
can  you  not  worship  in  the  same  way  ?  " 
The  old  colored  woman  looked  at  her  mis 
tress  for  a  few  moments  and  said  :  "  Lordy, 
missus,  you  don't  know  what  we's  doing ; 
Lordy,  missus,  you  don't  know  what  we's 
striving  at;  we's  just  blasting  out  de  stone 
for  de  foundation  ob  de  Temple."  So,  my 
friends,  when  you  hear  us  laying  so  much 
emphasis  upon  the  moral  and  economic 
training,  upon  home-getting  and  all  those 
things,  remember  we  are  simply  trying  to 
teach  our  people  to  blast  out  the  foundation 
of  the  temple  in  which  we  are  to  grow  and 
be  useful. 

Say 8  the  Psalmist :  "  O  Lord,  how  mani 
fold  are  Thy  works  ;  in  wisdom  hast  Thou 
made  them  all ;  the  earth  is  full  of  Thy 
riches."  I  believe  that  a  wise  Providence 
means  that  we  shall  use  all  the  material 
riches  of  the  earth  :  soil,  wood,  minerals, 
stones,  water,  air,  and  what  not,  as  a  means 


38  The  Negro  in  the  South 

through  which  to  reach  God  and  glorify 
Him. 

I  have  thus  briefly  dealt  with  the  problem 
of  slavery  in  its  relations  to  the  economic 
and  moral  growth  of  my  people.  Each  one 
of  these  periods  has  presented  a  problem  of 
tremendous  importance  and  seriousness  to 
your  race  and  to  my  race. 

If  more  attention  had  been  given  to  the 
economic  and  industrial  development  of 
Liberia  in  the  early  stages  of  the  history  of 
that  republic,  Liberia  would  be  far  in 
advance  of  its  present  condition  both  in 
morals  and  religion,  to  say  nothing  of  com 
mercial  prosperity.  In  Liberia  there  is  an 
immense  territory  rich  with  resources. 
Notwithstanding  this,  there  are  rio  im 
proved  or  advanced  methods  of  agricul 
ture  ;  the  soil  is  scarcely  stirred  ;  there  are 
no  carts,  wagons  or  other  wheeled  vehicles, 
practically  no  public  roads,  no  bridges,  no 
railroads ;  the  mineral  wealth  and  the 
timber  wealth  remain  almost  untouched ; 


The  Economic  Development         39 

and  I  am  told  on  good  authority  that,  in 
spite  of  all  this  wealth  right  at  the  very 
door  of  these  people,  even  school-teachers 
and  ministers  wear  clothing  manufactured 
in  the  United  States  or  in  Europe,  and  eat 
canned  goods  that  come  from  Chicago  or 
Germany. 

It  requires  no  argument  to  impress  the 
fact  that  the  most  practical  missionary  work 
would  have  been  in  the  direction  of  teach 
ing  these  people  how  to  cultivate  the  soil  in 
the  best  manner  with  the  very  best  imple 
ments,  how  to  get  the  wealth  out  of  their 
forests  and  water  and  mines,  how  to  build 
roads,  decent  bridges  and  decent  houses ;  in 
a  word,  how  to  take  hold  of  the  material 
riches  with  which  Providence  has  blessed 
the  land  and  turn  these  riches  into  moral 
and  religious  growth.  This,  in  my  opinion, 
would  have  represented  the  very  highest 
kind  of  missionary  work. 

I  do  not  grow  discouraged  or  despondent 
by  reason  of  great  and  serious  problems. 


40  The  Negro  in  the  South 

On  the  contrary,  I  deem  it  a  privilege  to  be 
permitted  to  live  in  an  age  when  great, 
serious,  and  perplexing  problems  are  to  be 
met  and  solved.  I  would  not  care  to  live 
in  a  period  when  there  was  no  weak  part  of 
the  human  family  to  be  helped  up  and  no 
wrongs  to  be  righted.  It  is  only  through 
struggle  and  the  surmounting  of  difficulties 
that  races,  like  individuals,  are  made  strong, 
powerful,  and  useful. 

This  is  the  road  the  Negro  should  travel ; 
this  is  the  road,  in  my  opinion,  the  Negro 
will  travel.  I  sometimes  fear  that  in  our 
great  anxiety  to  push  forward  we  lay  too 
much  stress  upon  our  former  condition. 
We  should  think  less  of  our  former  growth 
and  more  of  the  present  and  of  the  things 
which  go  to  retard  or  hinder  that  growth. 
In  one  of  his  letters  to  the  Galatians, 
St.  Paul  says  :  "  But  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit 
is  love,  joy,  peace,  long-suffering,  gentle 
ness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness,  temperance ; 
against  such  there  is  no  law." 


The  Economic  Development         41 

I  believe  that  it  is  possible  for  a  race,  as 
it  is  for  an  individual,  to  learn  to  live  up  in 
such  a  high  atmosphere  that  there  is  no 
human  law  that  can  prevail  against  it. 
There  is  no  man  who  can  pass  a  law  to 
affect  the  Negro  in  relation  to  his  singing, 
his  peace,  and  his  self-control.  Wherever  I 
go  I  would  enter  St.  Paul's  atmosphere  and, 
living  through  and  in  that  spirit,  we  will 
grow  and  make  progress  and,  notwithstand 
ing  discouragements  and  mistakes,  we  will 
become  an  increasingly  strong  part  of  the 
Christian  citizenship  of  this  republic. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  ECONOMIC  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE 
NEGRO  RACE  SINCE  ITS  EMANCIPA 
TION 


CHAPTER  II 

THE    ECONOMIC    DEVELOPMENT   OF  THE  NEGRO 
RACE   SINCE    ITS   EMANCIPATION 

IN  the  preceding  chapter,  I  referred  to 
some  of  the  things  which  the  Negro  brought 
with  him  out  of  slavery  into  his  life  of  free 
dom  that  he  used  to  his  advantage.  I  shall 
now  discuss  those  things  that  were  to  his 
disadvantage. 

We  must  bear  in  mind  that  one  of  the  in 
fluences  of  slavery  was  to  impress  upon 
both  master  and  slave  the  fact  that  labor 
with  the  hand  was  not  dignified,  was  dis 
graceful,  that  labor  of  this  character  was 
something  to  be  escaped,  to  be  gotten  rid  of 
just  as  soon  as  possible.  Hence,  it  was  very 
natural  that  the  Negro  race  looked  forward 
to  the  day  of  freedom  as  being  that  period 
when  it  would  be  delivered  from  all  neces 
sity  of  laboring  with  the  hand.  It  was 


46  The  Negro  in  the  South 

natural  that  a  large  proportion  of  the  race, 
immediately  after  its  freedom,  should  make 
the  mistake  of  confusing  freedom  with 
license.  Under  the  circumstances,  any 
other  race  would  have  acted  in  the  same 
manner. 

One  of  the  first  and  most  important  les 
sons,  then,  to  be  taught  the  Negro  when  he 
became  free  was  the  one  that  labor  with  the 
hand  or  with  the  head,  so  far  from  being 
something  to  be  dreaded  and  shunned,  was 
something  that  was  dignified  and  some 
thing  that  should  be  sought,  loved,  and  ap 
preciated.  Here  began  the  function  of  the 
industrial  school  for  the  education  of  the 
Negro.  This  was  the  uppermost  idea  of 
General  Armstrong,  the  father  of  industrial 
education  of  the  Negro.  And  permit  me  to 
say  right  here,  that,  in  my  opinion,  General 
Armstrong,  more  than  any  other  single  in 
dividual,  is  the  father  of  industrial  educa 
tion  not  only  for  the  Negro,  but  in  a  large 
measure  for  the  entire  United  States.  For 


Development  Since  Emancipation     47 

you  must  always  bear  in  mind  that,  prior  to 
the  establishment  of  such  institutions  as  the 
Hampton  Institute,  there  was  practically  no 
systematic  industrial  training  given  for 
either  black  or  white  people,  either  North 
or  South.  At  the  present  time  more  at 
tention  is  being  paid  to  this  kind  of  educa 
tion  for  white  boys  and  girls  than  is  being 
given  to  black  boys  and  girls. 

It  is  an  interesting  thought  that  this  kind 
of  education,  started  thirty-five  years  ago 
for  the  education  of  the  Negro,  has  spread 
throughout  the  United  States,  in  the  North 
and  West,  and  has  taken  hold  upon  the 
people  who  once  enslaved  the  Negro  in  our 
Southern  states. 

When  industrial  schools  were  first  estab 
lished  in  the  South  for  the  education  of 
members  of  my  race,  stubborn  objection  was 
raised  against  them  on  the  part  of  black 
people.  This  was  the  experience  of  Hamp 
ton,  and  this  in  later  years  was  the  expe 
rience  of  the  Tuskeegee  Institute. 


48  The  Negro  in  the  South 

I  remember  that  for  a  number  of  years  af 
ter  the  founding  of  the  Tuskeegee  Institute, 
objection  on  the  part  of  parents  and  on  the 
part  of  students  poured  in  upon  me  from  day 
to  day.  The  parents  said  that  they  wanted 
their  children  taught  "  the  book/'  but  they 
did  not  want  them  taught  anything  con 
cerning  farming  or  household  duties.  It 
was  curious  to  note  how  most  of  the  people 
worshiped  "  the  book."  The  parent  did  not 
care  what  was  inside  the  book  ;  the  harder 
and  the  longer  the  name  of  it,  the  better  it 
satisfied  the  parent  every  time,  and  the 
more  books  you  could  require  the  child  to 
purchase,  the  better  teacher  you  were.  His 
reputation  as  a  first-class  pedagogue  was 
added  to  very  largely  in  that  section  if  the 
teacher  required  the  child  to  buy  a  long 
string  of  books  each  year  and  each  month. 
I  found  some  white  people  who  had  the 
same  idea. 

They  reminded  me  further  that  the  Negro 
for  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  as  a  slave 


Development  Since  Emancipation     49 

had  been  worked,  and  now  that  the  race  was 
free  they  contended  that  their  children 
ought  not  to  be  taught  to  work  and  espe 
cially  while  in  school.  In  answer  to  these 
objections  I  said  to  them  that  it  was  true 
that  the  race  had  been  worked  in  slavery, 
but  the  great  lesson  which  we  wanted  to 
learn  in  freedom  was  to  work.  I  explained 
to  them  that  there  was  a  vast  difference  be 
tween  being  worked  and  working.  I  said 
to  them  that  being  worked  meant  degrada 
tion,  that  working  meant  civilization. 

We  have  gone  on  at  Tuskeegee  from  that 
day  until  this,  emphasizing  the  difference 
between  being  worked  and  working,  until, 
I  am  glad  to  say,  every  sign  of  opposition 
against  any  form  of  industrial  education 
has  completely  disappeared  from  among 
parents  and  students ;  and  I  but  state  the 
truth  when  I  say  that  industrial  education, 
whether  on  the  farm  or  in  the  carpenter 
shop  or  in  the  cooking  class,  is  even  more 
sought  after  at  Tuskeegee  than  is  training  in 


50  The  Negro  in  the  South 

purely  academic  branches.  It  has  been  ten 
years  since  I  have  had  a  single  application 
for  other  than  a  form  of  industrial  training. 
On  the  contrary,  this  kind  of  training  is  so 
popular  among  them  that  we  have  many 
applications  from  other  students  who  live 
in  other  states  who  wish  to  devote  them 
selves  wholly  to  the  industrial  side  of  educa 
tion. 

From  Hampton  and  Tuskeegee  and  other 
large  educational  centres  the  idea  of  in 
dustrial  education  has  spread  throughout 
the  South,  and  there  are  now  scores  of  in 
stitutions  that  are  giving  this  kind  of  train 
ing  in  a  most  effective  and  helpful  manner ; 
so  that,  in  my  opinion,  the  greatest  thing 
that  we  have  accomplished  for  the  Negro 
race  within  the  last  twenty-five  years  has 
been  to  rid  his  mind  of  all  idea  of  labor's 
being  degrading.  This  has  been  no  incon 
siderable  achievement.  If  I  were  asked  to 
point  out  the  greatest  change  accomplished 
for  the  Negro  race,  I  would  say  that  it  was 


Development  Since  Emancipation     51 

not  a  tangible,  physical  change,  but  a 
change  of  the  spirit, — the  new  idea  of  our 
people  with  respect  to  Negro  labor. 

Industrial  education  has  had  another 
value  wherever  it  has  been  put  into  prac 
tice,  that  is  in  starting  the  Negro  off  in  his 
new  life  in  a  natural,  logical,  sensible  man 
ner  instead  of  allowing  him  to  be  led  into 
temptation  to  begin  life  in  an  artificial 
atmosphere  without  any  real  foundation. 

All  races  that  have  reached  success  and 
have  influenced  the  world  for  righteousness 
have  laid  their  foundation  at  one  stage  of 
their  career  in  the  intelligent  and  successful 
cultivation  of  the  soil ;  that  is,  have  begun 
their  free  life  by  coming  into  contact  with 
earth  and  wood  and  stone  and  minerals. 
Any  people  that  begins  on  a  natural  founda 
tion  of  this  kind,  rises  slowly  but  naturally 
and  gradually  in  the  world. 

In  my  work  at  Tuskeegee  and  in  what  I 
have  endeavored  to  accomplish  in  writing 
and  in  speaking  before  the  public,  I  have 


52  The  Negro  in  the  South 

always  found  it  important  to  stick  to  nature 
as  closely  as  possible,  and  the  same  policy 
should  be  followed  with  a  race.  If  you  will 
excuse  my  making  a  personal  reference,  just 
as  often  as  I  can  when  I  am  at  home,  I  like 
to  get  my  hoe  and  dig  in  my  garden,  to 
come  into  contact  with  real  earth,  or  to 
touch  my  pigs  and  fowls.  Whenever  I 
want  new  material  for  an  address  or  a 
magazine  article,  I  follow  the  plan  of  get 
ting  away  from  the  town  with  its  artificial 
surroundings  and  getting  back  into  the 
country,  where  I  can  sleep  in  a  log  cabin 
and  eat  the  food  of  the  farmer,  go  among 
the  people  at  work  on  the  plantations  and 
hear  them  tell  their  experiences.  I  have 
gotten  more  material  in  this  way  than  I 
have  by  reading  books. 

Many  of  these  seemingly  ignorant  people, 
while  not  educated  in  the  way  that  we  con 
sider  education,  have  in  reality  a  very  high 
form  of  education — that  which  they  have 
gotten  out  of  contact  with  nature.  Only  a 


Development  Since  Emancipation     53 

few  days  ago  I  heard  one  of  these  old 
farmers,  who  could  neither  read  nor  write, 
give  a  lesson  before  a  Farmers'  Institute 
that  I  shall  never  forget.  The  old  man  got 
up  on  the  platform  and  began  with  this 
remark  :  "  I'se  had  no  chance  to  study 
science,  but  I'se  been  making  some  science 
for  myself,"  and  then  he  held  up  before  the 
audience  a  stalk  of  cotton  with  only  two 
bolls  on  it.  He  said  he  began  his  scientific 
work  with  that  stalk.  Then  he  held  up  a 
second  stalk  and  showed  how  the  following 
year  he  had  improved  the  soil  so  that  the 
stalk  contained  four  bolls,  and  then  he  held 
up  a  third  stalk  and  showed  how  he  had 
improved  the  soil  and  method  of  cultivation 
until  the  stalk  contained  six  bolls,  and  so 
he  went  through  the  whole  process  until  he 
had  demonstrated  to  his  fellow  farmers  how 
he  had  made  a  single  stalk  of  cotton  pro 
duce  twelve  or  fourteen  bolls.  At  the  close 
of  the  old  man's  address  somebody  in  the 
audience  asked  what  his  name  was.  He 


54  The  Negro  in  the  South 

replied,  "  When  I  didn't  own  no  home  and 
was  in  debt,  they  used  to  call  me  old  Jim 
Hill,  but  now  that  I  own  a  home  and  am 
out  of  debt,  they  call  me  '  Mr.  James 
Hill.' " 

In  the  previous  chapter  I  referred  to  the 
practical  benefit  that  could  be  achieved  in 
foreign  mission  fields  through  economic 
and  industrial  development.  Now  that 
industrial  education  is  understood  and 
appreciated  by  the  Negro  in  America,  the 
question  which  has  the  most  practical 
value  to  you  and  to  me  is  what  effect  has 
this  kind  of  development  had  upon  the 
moral  and  religious  life  of  the  Negro  right 
here  in  America  since  the  race  became  free. 

By  reason  of  the  difficulty  in  getting  re 
liable  and  comprehensive  statistics,  it  is  not 
easy  to  answer  this  question  with  satisfac 
tion,  but  I  believe  that  enough  facts  can  be 
given  to  show  that  economic  and  industrial 
development  has  wonderfully  improved  the 
moral  and  religious  life  of  the  Negro  race  in 


Development  Since  Emancipation     55 

America,  and  that,  just  in  proportion  as  any 
race  progresses  in  this  same  direction,  its 
moral  and  religious  life  will  be  strengthened 
and  made  more  practical. 

Let  me  first  emphasize  the  fact  that  in 
order  for  the  moral  and  religious  life  to  be 
strengthened  we  must  of  necessity  have 
industry,  but  along  with  industry  there 
must  be  intelligence  and  refinement.  With 
out  these  two  elements  combined,  the  moral 
and  religious  lives  of  the  people  are  not  very 
much  helped. 

A  few  months  ago  I  was  in  a  mining 
camp  composed  largely  of  members  of  my 
race  who  were,  for  the  most  part,  ignorant 
and  uncultivated,  who  had  had  little  op 
portunities  in  the  way  of  education,  but 
they  had  been  taught  to  mine  coal.  The 
operators  of  this  mine  complained  that,  not 
withstanding  the  unusually  high  wages 
being  paid  during  that  season,  these  miners 
could  not  be  induced  to  work  more  than 
three  or  four  days  out  of  six.  The  diffi- 


56  The  Negro  in  the  South 

culty  was  right  here ;  these  miners  were  so 
ignorant  that  they  had  few  wants,  and  these 
were  simple  and  crude.  Their  wants  could 
be  satisfied  by  working  a  few  days  out  of 
each  week,  and  when  they  had  satisfied 
their  wants  they  could  not  understand  why 
it  was  necessary  to  work  any  longer,  and  we 
must  all  acknowledge  that  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  human  nature  in  this  point  of 
view. 

In  a  case  of  this  kind,  what  is  needed  is  not 
only  to  have  the  individual  educated  in 
industry  but  to  have  his  hand  so  trained 
that  he  will  become  ambitious ;  as  one  man 
put  it  not  long  ago,  "  He  will  want  more 
wants."  We  should  get  the  man  to  the 
point  where  he  will  want  a  house,  where  his 
wife  will  want  carpet  for  the  floor,  pictures 
for  the  walls,  books,  a  newspaper  and  a  sub 
stantial  kind  of  furniture.  We  should  get 
the  family  to  the  point  where  it  will  want 
money  to  educate  its  children,  to  support 
the  minister  and  the  church.  Later,  we 


Development  Since  Emancipation     57 

should  get  this  family  to  the  point  where  it 
will  want  to  put  money  in  the  bank  and 
perhaps  have  the  experience  of  placing  a 
mortgage  on  some  property.  When  this 
stage  of  development  has  been  reached, 
there  is  no  difficulty  in  getting  individuals 
to  work  six  days  during  the  week. 

I  have  in  mind  now  an  old  colored  man 
who  lived  some  four  miles  from  the  Institu 
tion.  I  first  noticed  him  a  number  of  years 
ago  as  I  took  my  daily  exercise  after  my 
day's  work.  I  found  him  and  his  wife 
living  in  a  little  broken-down  cabin  and 
resolved  to  try  an  experiment  on  them  to 
see  if  I  could  not  get  them  to  realize  that 
that  kind  of  life  proved  of  no  benefit. 
When  I  began,  their  wants  were  for  the  bare 
necessities  of  life  only.  I  gradually  began  to 
talk  to  his  wife  and  urge  her  to  see  the  im 
portance  of  living  a  different  kind  of  life. 
Without  the  old  man's  knowing  it,  I  took 
pains  to  tell  her  of  how  some  of  their  neigh 
bors  were  living  and  about  some  of  the 


58  The  Negro  in  the  South 

things  her  neighbors  were  owning.  Some 
had  two-room  houses,  glass  windows,  new 
furniture,  and  little  pieces  of  carpet,  and  had 
whitewashed  their  houses.  Finally  she  be 
came  quite  interested. 

When  I  began  with  the  man  he  was 
working  about  three  days  in  the  week. 
The  old  fellow  grew  interested  and  began  to 
work  a  little  longer,  until  the  last  time 
I  rode  by  that  house  the  old  man  was 
working  nearly  every  day  in  the  week, 
while  they  were  living  in  a  two-room  house 
and  everything  had  changed.  The  hardest 
task  I  had  was  to  get  him  to  put  up  a 
chimney  for  the  second  room,  finally  he  put 
up  one  and  although  it  was  a  pretty  rickety, 
crooked  affair,  yet  it  answered  the  purpose 
and  he  felt  proud  of  it.  When  I  left  this 
time  he  informed  me  that  by  the  time  I 
came  back  he  would  try  to  have  both  of 
those  rooms  whitewashed.  I  am  not  through 
with  that  family  yet.  I  am  going  to  work 
on  that  woman  until  through  her  I  will  get 


Development  Since  Emancipation     59 

the  old  man  to  work  five  and  six  days  out 
of  the  week. 

It  should  always  be  borne  in  mind  that, 
for  any  person  of  any  race,  literary  education 
alone  increases  his  want ;  and,  if  you  increase 
these  wants  without  at  the  same  time  train 
ing  the  individual  in  a  manner  to  enable 
him  to  supply  these  increased  wants,  you 
have  not  always  strengthened  his  moral  and 
religious  basis. 

The  same  principle  might  be  illustrated  in 
connection  with  South  Africa.  In  that 
country  there  are  six  millions  of  Negroes. 
Notwithstanding  this  fact,  South  Africa 
suffers  to-day  perhaps  as  never  before  for 
lack  of  labor.  The  natives  have  never  been 
educated  by  contact  with  the  white  man  in 
the  same  way  as  has  been  true  of  the  Ameri 
can  Negro.  They  have  never  been  educated 
in  the  day  school  nor  in  the  Sunday-school 
nor  in  the  church,  nor  in  the  industrial 
school  or  college ;  hence  their  ambitions 
have  never  been  awakened,  their  wants  have 


60  The  Negro  in  the  South 

not  been  increased,  and  they  work  perhaps 
two  days  out  of  the  week  and  are  in  idleness 
during  the  remaining  portion  of  the  time. 
This  view  of  the  case  I  had  confirmed  in 
a  conversation  with  a  gentleman  who  had 
large  interests  in  South  Africa. 

How  different  in  the  Southern  part  of  the 
United  States  where  we  have  eight  millions 
of  black  people  !  Ask  any  man  who  has 
had  practical  experience  in  using  the  masses 
of  these  people  as  laborers  and  he  will  tell 
you  that  in  proportion  to  their  progress  in 
the  civilization  of  the  world,  it  is  difficult 
to  find  any  set  of  men  who  will  labor  in  a 
more  satisfactory  way.  True,  these  people 
have  not  by  any  means  reached  perfection 
in  this  regard,  but  they  have  advanced  on 
the  whole  much  beyond  the  condition  of  the 
South  Africans.  The  trained  American 
Negro  has  learned  to  want  the  highest  and 
best  in  our  civilization,  and  as  we  go  on 
giving  him  more  education,  increasing  his 
industrial  efficiency  and  his  love  of  labor, 


Development  Since  Emancipation     61 

he  will  soon  get  to  the  point  where  he  will 
work  six  days  out  of  each  week. 

But  as  to  the  results  of  industrial  train 
ing.  Following  the  example  of  the  modern 
pedagogue,  let  me  begin  with  that  which  I 
know  most  about,  the  Tuskeegee  Institute. 
This  institution  employs  one  of  its  officers 
who  spends  a  large  part  of  his  time  in  keep 
ing  in  close  contact  with  our  graduates  and 
former  students.  He  visits  them  in  their 
homes  and  in  their  places  of  employment 
and  not  only  sees  for  himself  what  they  are 
doing,  but  gets  the  testimony  of  their  neigh 
bors  and  employers,  and  I  can  state  posi 
tively  that  not  ten  per  cent,  of  the  men  and 
women  who  have  graduated  from  the 
Tuskeegee  Institute  or  who  have  been  there 
long  enough  to  understand  the  spirit  and 
methods  of  that  institution  can  be  found  to 
day  in  idleness  in  any  part  of  the  country. 
They  are  at  work  because  they  have  learned 
the  dignity  and  beauty  and  civilizing  influ 
ence  and,  I  might  add,  Christianizing  power 


62  The  Negro  in  the  South 

of  labor  ;  they  have  learned  the  degrada 
tion  and  demoralizing  influence  of  idleness  ; 
they  have  learned  to  love  labor  for  its  own 
sake  and  are  miserable  unless  they  are  at 
work.  I  consider  labor  one  of  the  greatest 
boons  which  our  Creator  has  conferred  upon 
human  beings. 

Further,  after  making  careful  investiga 
tion,  I  am  prepared  to  say  that  there  is  not 
a  single  man  or  woman  who  holds  a  di 
ploma  from  the  Tuskeegee  Institute  who 
can  be  found  within  the  walls  of  any  peni 
tentiary  in  the  United  States. 

I  have  learned  that  not  more  than  a  score 
of  the  graduates  of  the  fifteen  oldest  and 
largest  colleges  and  industrial  schools  in  the 
entire  South  have  been  sent  to  prison  since 
these  institutions  were  established.  Those 
who  are  guilty  of  crime  for  the  most  part 
are  individuals  who  are  without  educa 
tion,  without  a  trade,  who  own  no  land, 
who  are  not  taxpaj^ers,  who  have  no 
bank  account,  and  who  have  made  no 


Development  Since  Emancipation     63 

progress    in    industrial   and   economic   de 
velopment. 

The  following  extracts  from  a  letter  writ 
ten  by  a  Southern  white  man  to  the  Daily 
Advertiser,  of  Montgomery,  Alabama,  con 
tains  most  valuable  testimony.  The  letter 
refers  to  convicts  in  Alabama,  most  of  whom 
are  colored : 

"  I  was  conversing  not  long  ago  with  the 
warden  of  one  of  our  mining  prisons,  con 
taining  about  500  convicts.  The  warden 
is  a  practical  man,  who  has  been  in  charge  of 
prisoners  for  more  than  fifteen  years,  and 
has  no  theories  of  any  kind  to  support.  I 
remarked  to  him  that  I  wanted  some  infor 
mation  as  to  the  effect  of  manual  training 
in  preventing  criminality,  and  asked  him  to 
state  what  per  cent,  of  the  prisoners  under 
his  charge  had  received  any  manual  train 
ing,  besides  acquaintance  with  the  crudest 
agricultural  labor.  He  replied  :  '  Perhaps 
about  one  per  cent.7  He  added :  '  No, 
much  less  than  that.  We  have  here  at 
present  only  one  mechanic  ;  that  is,  there  is 
one  man  who  claims  to  be  a  house  painter/ 


64  The  Negro  in  the  South 

"  '  Have  you  any  shoemakers  ?  ' 

"  '  Never  had  a  shoemaker/ 

" l  Have  you  any  tailors  ?  ' 

"  '  Never  had  a  tailor/ 

"  '  Any  printers  ?  ' 

"  l  Never  had  a  printer.' 

"  '  Any  carpenters  ? ' 

"  '  Never  had  a  carpenter.  There  is  not 
a  man  in  this  prison  that  could  saw  to  a 
straight  line.' ' 

Now  these  facts  seem  to  show  that  man 
ual  training  is  almost  as  good  a  preventa- 
tive  of  criminality  as  vaccination  is  of 
smallpox. 

The  records  of  the  South  show  that  ninety 
per  cent,  of  the  colored  people  in  prisons 
are  without  knowledge  of  trades,  and  sixty- 
one  per  cent,  are  illiterate. 

There  are  few  higher  authorities  on  the 
progress  of  the  Negro  than  Joel  Chandler 
Harris,  of  the  Atlanta  Constitution,  of  "  Uncle 
Remus  "  fame.  Mr.  Harris  had  opportunity 
to  know  the  Negro  before  the  war,  and  he 
has  followed  his  progress  closely  in  freedom. 


Development  Since  Emancipation     65 

In  a  printed  statement  made  some  time  ago 
Mr.  Harris  says : 

"  The  point  I  desire  to  make  is  that  the 
overwhelming  majority  of  the  Negroes  in  all 
parts  of  the  South,  especially  in  the  agricul 
tural  regions,  are  leading  sober  and  indus 
trious  lives.  A  temperate  race  is  bound  to  be 
industrious,  and  the  Negroes  are  temperate 
when  compared  with  the  whites.  Even  in 
the  towns  the  majority  of  them  are  sober 
and  industrious." 

Dr.  Frissell  makes  the  same  statement 
regarding  Hampton  Institute.  Not  more 
than  a  score  of  the  graduates  have  been 
sent  to  prison  since  these  institutions  were 
established.  The  majority  is  among  those 
who  are  without  training  and  who  have 
made  no  progress  in  industrial  and  eco 
nomic  development.  The  idle  and  criminal 
classes  among  them  make  a  great  show  in 
the  police  court  records,  but  right  here  in 
Atlanta  the  respectable  and  decent  Negroes 
far  outnumber  those  who  are  on  the  lists 


66  The  Negro  in  the  South 

of  the  police  as  old  or  new  offenders.  I 
am  bound  to  conclude  from  what  I  see  all 
about  me,  and  what  I  know  of  the  race  else 
where,  that  the  Negro,  notwithstanding  the 
late  start  he  has  made  in  civilization  and 
enlightenment,  is  capable  of  making  himself 
a  useful  member  in  the  communities  in 
which  he  lives  and  moves,  and  that  he  is 
become  more  and  more  desirous  of  conform 
ing  to  all  the  laws  that  have  been  enacted 
for  the  protection  of  society. 

Some  time  ago  I  sent  out  letters  to  repre 
sentative  Southern  men,  covering  each  ex- 
slave  state,  asking  them  to  state,  judging  by 
their  observation  in  their  own  communities, 
what  effect  industrial  education  has  upon 
the  morals  and  religion  of  the  Negro.  To 
these  questions  I  received  136  replies  as 
follows  : 

Has  education  improved  the  rnqrals  of  the 
black  race  ? 

Answers — Yes,  97  ;  No,  20  ;  Unanswered, 
19. 


Development  Since  Emancipation     67 

Has  it  made  his  religion  less  emotional 
and  more  practical  ? 

Answers — Yes,  101  ;  No,  16 ;  Unanswered, 
19. 

Is  it,  as  a  rule,  the  ignorant  or  the 
educated  who  commit  crime  ? 

Answers — Ignorant,  115;  Educated,  3; 
Unanswered,  18. 

Does  crime  grow  less  as  education  in 
creases  among  the  colored  people  ? 

Answers — Yes,  102  ;  No,  19 ;  Unanswered, 
15. 

Do  not  these  figures  speak  for  them 
selves  ? 

If  possible  I  want  to  give  you  an  idea  of 
the  progress  of  the  Negro  race  in  a  single 
county  in  one  of  the  Southern  States.  For 
this  purpose  I  select  Gloucester  County, 
Virginia.  I  take  this  one  for  the  reason 
that  I  had  the  privilege  of  visiting  it  a 
number  of  years  ago,  just  about  the  time 
when  interest  in  the  education  of  the 
colored  people  was  beginning  to  be  aroused, 


68  The  Negro  in  the  South 

and  for  the  further  reason  that  this  is  one 
of  the  counties  in  Virginia  and  the  South 
that  has  been  longest  under  the  influence 
of  graduates  of  the  Hampton  Institute,  or  of 
men  and  women  trained  in  other  centres  of 
education. 

Gloucester  County  is  the  tide-water  sec 
tion  of  Eastern  Virginia.  According  to  the 
census  of  1890,  Gloucester  County  contained 
a  total  population  of  12,832,  a  little  over 
one-half  being  colored,  and  both  sets  of 
schools  are  in  session  from  five  and  a  half 
to  six  months,  and  the  pay  of  the  two  sets 
of  teachers  is  about  the  same.  The  majority 
of  the  colored  teachers  in  this  county  were 
trained  at  Hampton,  and  have  been  teach 
ing  in  this  county  a  number  of  years.  For 
the  most  part,  the  teachers  of  Gloucester 
County  are  not  mentally  superior,  but  what 
they  lack  in  methods  of  teaching  and  men 
tal  alertness  is  more  than  made  up  for  by 
the  moral  earnestness  and  the  example 
they  set.  Most  of  the  teachers  are  natives 


Development  Since  Emancipation     69 

of  the  county,  and,  what  is  more  important, 
most  of  them  own  property  in  the  county. 

Now,  what  is  the  economic  or  material 
result  in  one  county  where  the  Negro  has 
been  given  a  reasonable  chance  to  make 
progress?  I  say  "  reasonable  "  because  it 
must  be  kept  in  mind  that  the  great  body 
of  white  people  in  America,  with  whom  the 
Negro  is  constantly  compared,  have  schools 
that  are  in  session  from  eight  to  nine 
months  in  the  year.  Note  especially  what 
I  am  going  to  say  now.  According  to  the 
public  records,  the  total  assessed  value  of  the 
land  in  Gloucester  County  is  $666,132.33. 
Of  the  total  value  of  the  land,  the  colored 
people  own  $87,953.55.  The  buildings  in 
the  county  have  an  assessed  valuation  of 
$466,127.05.  The  colored  people  pay  taxes 
upon  $79,387.00  of  this  amount.  To  state 
it  differently,  the  Negroes  of  Gloucester 
County,  beginning  about  forty  years  ago  in 
poverty,  have  reached  the  point  where  they 
now  own  and  pay  taxes  upon  one-sixth  of 


jo  The  Negro  in  the  South 

the  real  estate  in  this  county.  This  prop 
erty  is  very  largely  in  the  shape  of  small 
farms,  varying  in  size  from  ten  to  one  hun 
dred  acres.  A  large  proportion  of  the  farms 
contain  about  ten  acres. 

It  is  interesting  to  note  the  influence  of 
this  material  growth  upon  the  home  life  of 
the  people.  It  is  stated  upon  good  au 
thority  that  about  twenty-five  years  ago  at 
least  three-fourths  of  the  colored  people 
lived  in  one-roomed  cabins.  Let  a  single 
illustration  tell  the  story  of  the  growth. 
In  a  school  where  there  were  thirty  pupils 
ten  testified  that  they  lived  in  houses  con 
taining  six  rooms,  and  only  one  said  that 
he  lived  in  a  house  containing  but  a  single 
room. 

I  repeat,  I  have  always  believed  that  in 
proportion  as  the  industrial,  not  omitting 
the  intellectual,  condition  of  my  race  is  im 
proved,  in  the  same  degree  would  their 
moral  and  religious  life  improve. 

Some  years  ago,  before  the  home  life  and 


Development  Since  Emancipation     71 

economic  condition  of  the  people  had  im 
proved,  bastardy  was  common  in  Gloucester 
County.  In  1903  there  were  only  eight  cases 
of  bastardy  reported  in  the  whole  county,  and 
two  of  those  were  among  the  white  popu 
lation.  During  the  year  1904  there  was 
only  one  case  of  bastardy  within  a  radius  of 
ten  miles  of  the  court  house.  Another 
gratifying  evidence  of  progress  is  shown  by 
the  fact  that  there  is  very  little  evidence  of 
immoral  relations  existing  between  the  races. 
In  the  whole  county,  during  the  year  1903, 
about  twenty-five  years  after  the  work  of 
education  had  gotten  under  way,  there 
were  only  thirty  arrests  for  misdemeanors  ; 
of  these  sixteen  were  white,  fourteen  colored. 
In  1904  there  were  fifteen  such  arrests— 
fourteen  white  and  one  colored.  In  1904 
there  were  but  seven  arrests  for  felonies  ; 
of  these  two  were  white  and  five  were 
colored. 

In  one  point  at  least  the  colored  people 
in  Gloucester  County  have  set  an  example 


7  2  The  Negro  in  the  South 

for  the  rest  of  the  religious  world  that 
ought  to  receive  attention.  It  is  in  this 
regard  :  there  is  only  one  religious  denomi 
nation  in  all  of  this  county,  and  that  is  the 
Baptist.  No  over-multiplying,  no  over 
lapping,  no  denominational  wrangling  and 
wasting  of  money  and  energy. 

My  I  add  that,  out  of  my  own  observa 
tion  and  experience  in  the  heart  of  the 
South  during  the  last  twenty-five  years,  I 
have  learned  that  the  man  of  my  race  who 
has  some  regular  occupation,  who  owns  his 
farm,  is  a  taxpayer  and  perhaps  has  a  little 
money  in  the  bank,  is  the  most  reliable  and 
helpful  man  in  the  Sunday-school,  in  the 
church,  and  in  all  religious  endeavor.  The 
man  who  has  gotten  upon  his  feet  in  these 
directions  is  almost  never  charged  with 
crime,  but  is  the  one  who  has  the  respect 
and  the  confidence  of  both  races  in  his 
community. 

I  can  give  you  no  better  idea  of  the  tre 
mendous  advance  which  the  Negro  has 


Development  Since  Emancipation     73 

made  since  he  became  free  than  to  say  that 
largely  through  the  influence  of  industrial 
education  the  race  has  acquired  ownership 
in  land  that  is  equal  in  area  to  the  com 
bined  countries  of  Belgium  and  Holland. 
This,  for  a  race  starting  in  poverty  and  ig 
norance  forty  years  ago,  it  seems  to  me  is  a 
pretty  good  record. 

I  would  not  have  you  understand  that  I 
emphasize  material  possessions  as  the  chief 
thing  in  life  or  as  an  object  within  itself.  I 
emphasize  economic  growth  because  the  civ 
ilization  of  the  world  teaches  that  the  pos 
session  of  a  certain  amount  of  material 
wealth  indicates  the  ability  of  a  race  to  ex 
ercise  self-control,  to  plan  to-day  for  to 
morrow,  to  do  without  to-day  in  order  that 
it  may  possess  to-morrow.  In  other  words, 
a  race,  like  an  individual,  becomes  highly 
civilized  and  useful  in  proportion  as  it 
learns  to  use  the  good  things  of  this  earth, 
not  as  an  end,  but  as  a  means  toward  pro 
moting  its  own  moral  and  religious  growth 


74  The  Negro  in  the  South 

and  the  prosperity  and  happiness  of  the 
world.  This  is  what  I  advocate  for  my 
race ;  it  is  what  I  would  advocate  for  any 
race. 

The  average  white  man  of  America,  in 
passing  judgment  upon  the  black  race,  very 
often  overlooks  the  fact  that  geographically 
and  physically  the  semi-barbarous  Negro 
race  has  been  thrown  right  down  in  the 
centre  of  the  highest  civilization  that  the 
world  knows  anything  about.  Consciously 
or  unconsciously,  you  compare  the  Negro's 
progress  with  your  progress,  forgetting, 
when  you  are  doing  it,  that  you  are  placing  a 
pretty  severe  test  on  the  members  of  my  race. 
If,  for  example,  we  were  compared  with  the 
civilization  of  the  Oriental  countries,  the 
test  would  not  be  so  severe.  But  we  have 
been  placed  in  the  midst  of  a  pushing,  surg 
ing,  restless,  conquering,  successful  civili 
zation,  and  you  must  acknowledge  that 
when  the  American  white  man  wants  to 
lead,  no  other  race  can  go  far  ahead.  In 


Development  Since  Emancipation     75 

fact,  he  would  have  the  whole  field  to  him 
self.  The  progress  of  the  Negro  will  be  in 
proportion  as  they  learn  to  get  the  material 
things  of  this  world,  consecrate  them,  and 
weave  them  into  the  service  of  our  Heavenly 
Father. 

In  conclusion,  may  I  say  that  I  hope  the 
people  of  this  country,  North  and  South, 
will  learn  to  pray  more  and  more ;  and,  as 
they  pray,  to  put  their  hands  upon  their 
hearts  and  then  ask  God  if  they  were  placed 
in  the  Negro's  state,  how,  under  the  circum 
stances,  would  they  like  to  be  treated  by 
their  fellows.  Conscience  will  answer  the 
question. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  ECONOMIC  BEVOLUTION  IN  THE 
SOUTH 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    ECONOMIC     KEVOLUTION     IN    THE   SOUTH 

Two  questions  may  be  asked  of  any  group 
of  human  beings  :  first,  How  do  they  earn 
their  living,  and  secondly,  What  is  their  at 
titude  toward  life  ?  The  first  relates  to  the 
economic  history  and  condition  of  that  peo 
ple  ;  the  second  is  a  study  of  their  religion. 
In  these  two  essays  I  am  to  treat  the  first  of 
these  questions  under  the  subject :  The 
Economic  Revolution  in  the  South,  and  the 
second  under  the  subject :  Christianity  in 
the  South. 

The  last  century  was  notable  because  of 
the  great  change  in  method  and  organiza 
tion  of  human  work  and  we  call  the  early 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  time  of 
economic  revolution  in  Europe  and  to 
some  extent  in  America.  The  southern 
United  States,  however,  while  profoundly 


8o  The  Negro  in  the  South 

influenced  by  this  revolution  from  the  first, 
has  not  until  to-day  actually  felt  its  full  ef 
fect.  The  new  factory  system  of  the  early 
nineteenth  century  is  just  to-day  appearing 
in  the  South,  and  yet  its  appearance  in  Eng 
land  and  New  England  seventy-five  years 
ago  made  the  South  a  part  of  the  world  in 
dustrial  organization  by  making  it  the  seat 
of  cotton  culture  (see  Note  1). 

Two  diverse  developments  resulted  :  In 
England  and  the  North  came  a  change  from 
household  industry  to  social  industry,  a  step 
forward  which  led  to  an  era  of  machinery, 
to  a  curious  concentration  of  individuals 
and  wealth  and  the  necessities  of  living  in 
certain  great  centres.  That  very  concentra 
tion  led  to  a  wonderful  contact  of  man  with 
man  which  sharpened  mind  and  sharpened 
thought  and  in  the  long  run  made  the 
Europe  of  to-day.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
southern  United  States,  though  really  a  part 
of  this  great  system  through  its  work  of  fur 
nishing  raw  cotton,  did  not  come  into  the 


The  Economic  Revolution  81 

whirl  of  the  new  industry  because  she  had 
an  industrial  system  which  forbade  machin 
ery,  discouraged  human  contact,  and 
shackled  thought. 

Why  did  this  system  of  slavery  persist  so 
long  in  the  South  as  to  be  caught  in  the 
vortex  of  the  new  industrial  movement  and 
rendered  almost  inextricable  ? 

If  the  South  had  been  a  place  of  intelli 
gent  farmers  on  small  farms,  we  could  im 
agine  a  development  which  would  have 
been  the  wonder  of  the  world  ;  but  because 
the  fathers  of  the  United  States  were  so  busy 
with  large  questions  that  they  forgot  larger 
ones,  so  busy  settling  matters  of  commerce 
and  representation  and  politics  that  they  for 
got  matters  of  work  and  justice  and  human 
rights — because  of  this  we  have  in  the  South 
one  of  those  curious  back  eddies  of  human 
progress  that  twist  and  puzzle  advance  and 
thought. 

The  very  forward  forces  of  industry  that 
fastened  slavery  on  the  South  were  weaving 


82  The  Negro  in  the  South 

a  social  system  which  made  the  enslave 
ment  of  laborers  impossible  and  unprofit 
able.  Consequently  at  the  very  time  when 
the  South  ought  to  have  been  increasing  in 
intelligence,  law  and  order,  the  use  of  machin 
ery,  industrial  concentration,  and  the  inten 
sive  culture  of  land  with  the  rest  of  the 
world,  she  lost  a  half  century  in  a  develop 
ment  backward  toward  a  dispersing  of  pop 
ulation,  extensive  rather  than  intensive 
land  culture,  increased  and  compulsory  ig 
norance  of  the  laboring  class,  and  the  rear 
ing  of  a  complete  system  of  caste  and  aristoc 
racy  (see  Note  2). 

Evils  there  were  to  be  sure  in  the  new 
factory  system  of  Europe  and  the  North, 
evils  which  southern  leaders  did  not  fail  to 
note  and  gloat  over,  but  they  were  evils  of 
another  and  newer  industrial  era,  which 
did  not  stop  progress,  but  gave  it  added  in 
centive. 

The  industrial  back-set  of  the  South 
meant  of  course  but  one  thing :  the  dis- 


The  Economic  Revolution  83 

covery  of  the  paradox  of  slavery,  the  turn 
ing  from  the  mistake,  and  the  adoption  of 
remedial  measures  which  should  usher  into 
the  South  the  same  industrial  revolution  in 
methods  of  work  which  Europe  saw  begin  a 
century  ago.  This  is  exactly  what  has  hap 
pened,  and  to-day  the  Industrial  Revolu 
tion  is  beginning  south  of  Mason  and 
Dixon's  line.  The  forecast  of  change  was  ap 
parent  by  1850.  Slavery  still  paid  then- 
was  still  an  economic  success,  but  only  un 
der  conditions  which  became  more  and  more 
impossible  of  realization  because  of  the 
factory  system  and  the  new  industrial  con 
ditions  in  the  rest  of  the  world  (see  Note  3). 
It  was,  in  other  words,  an  attempt  at  an 
industrial  system  with  the  lowest  wages, 
the  most  oppressive  labor  laws,  and  the  best 
natural  advantages.  Such  a  system  at  such 
a  time  carried  its  own  sentence  of  death  : 
fertile  land  was  becoming  scarce  in  the 
forties,  the  horrors  of  the  slave  trade  had 
shocked  even  the  eighteenth  century,  and 


84  The  Negro  in  the  South 

southern  labor  laws  which  made  knowledge 
a  crime  and  migration  of  laborers  a  capital 
offense,  simply  could  not  be  enforced.  It 
was  in  vain  that  the  solidly  united  capital 
istic  classes  of  the  South  threw  themselves 
bodily  into  the  fray — raped  Mexico,  filibus 
tered  in  Cuba  and  Central  America,  en 
couraged  slave-smuggling  (see  Note  4),  and 
bullied  the  hesitating  North  ;  their  economic 
doom  was  written  even  if  militant  Aboli 
tionism  had  not  appeared. 

The  economic  student  could  have  fore 
told  and  did  foretell  easily  in  the  forties 
and  fifties  that  slavery  in  the  South  was 
doomed  (see  Note  5) :  even  if  all  available 
territory  had  been  thrown  wide  to  the  slave 
system,  slavery  could  not  possibly  have 
stayed  in  Kansas  and  Utah,  in  New  Mexico 
or  in  Arizona ;  it  could  have  stayed  only 
temporarily  in  Missouri  and  in  Texas.  It 
had  already  reached  its  territorial  limit,  it 
was  bound  to  have  evolved  something  dif 
ferent.  It  will  always  be  an  interesting 


The  Economic  Revolution  85 

speculation  as  to  how  soon  this  economic 
necessity  would  have  been  recognized ; 
whether  the  South  would  have  had  the 
acumen  eventually  to  see  the  end,  and 
what  sort  of  gradual  change  could  have  come 
about,  had  it  not  been  for  the  political  crisis 
precipitated  in  1861. 

Then  came  the  war — that  disgraceful 
episode  of  civil  strife  when,  leaving  the  ar 
guments  of  men,  the  nation  appealed  to  the 
last  resort  of  dogs,  murdering  and  ravishing 
each  other  for  four  long  shameful  years  (see 
Note  6). 

When  this  nightmare  had  passed  there 
came,  after  the  resulting  period  of  disorder, 
a  new  regime,  a  new  problem  of  labor,  a 
new  industrial  order.  Not  only  that,  but 
gradually  in  the  decade  1870-1880  there 
were  added  to  the  South  four  new  economic 
activities :  first,  the  iron  industry ;  second, 
the  manufacture  of  cotton  cloth ;  third,  the 
transportation  of  these  goods  to,  from,  and 
through  the  South ;  and  fourth,  the  general 


86  The  Negro  in  the  South 

exchange  of  goods  in  this  growing  Southern 
industrial  population — in  other  words,  the 
Industrial  Revolution  was  beginning  in  the 
South.  So  that  the  South  of  the  80's  was  a 
different  South  from  the  South  of  the  60's, 
not  simply  by  reason  of  emancipation  but 
by  reason  of  new  economic  possibilities. 

However,  this  change  could  not  go  on 
unhindered  by  the  mistakes  of  the  past. 
With  all  that  was  new  in  the  South,  there 
was  also  much  that  was  old,  and  of  these 
old  things  the  most  important  were  the 
Ideals  which  slavery  handed  down — ideals 
of  government,  of  labor,  of  caste. 

Consequently  when  the  South  tried  to  use 
its  new  freed  labor  on  its  new  industrial 
possibilities,  it  went  to  the  problem  full  of 
the  ideals  of  slavery,  and  it  made  four 
separate  attempts.  In  the  first  place  it  was 
perfectly  natural  for  a  land  which  had 
said  for  generations  that  free  Negro  labor 
was  an  impossibility,  and  free  Negro  citi 
zens  unthinkable,  to  cherish  a  very  distinct 


The  Economic  Revolution  87 

idea  that  the  way  to  get  along  with  the 
emancipated  Negro  was  to  make  him  a  slave 
in  fact  if  not  in  name.  The  idea  that  was 
back  of  the  first  apprentice  laws  and  the 
various  labor  codes  passed  directly  after 
Lee's  surrender  was  that  the  labor  of  the 
blacks  belonged  to  the  former  white  owners 
by  right  and  could  be  directed  only  by 
force  under  a  nominal  wage  system.  These 
labor  codes  therefore  attempted  to  reestab 
lish  slavery  without  a  slave  trade  (see 
Note  7). 

These  ill-advised  attempts  were  frustrated 
by  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  which  made 
the  freedmen  voters.  The  Thirteenth 
Amendment  did  not  abolish  slavery — it 
directed  its  abolition  and  the  answer  to  it 
was  the  labor  codes.  The  Fourteenth 
Amendment  gave  the  freedmen  civil  rights 
and  put  a  premium  on  granting  them  polit 
ical  rights,  but  the  premium  was  not  ac 
cepted  and  the  civil  rights  remained  unen- 
forced.  The  Fifteenth  Amendment  went  to 


The  Negro  in  the  South 

the  root  of  the  matter  by  putting  local  polit 
ical  power  into  the  hands  of  the  freedmen 
and  their  friends  and  this  made  slavery  and 
the  slave  system  impossible. 

What  the  nation  had  before  it  then  was 
not  the  nice  academic  question  as  to  whether 
it  would  be  better  to  have  as  voters  men  of 
intelligence  or  men  of  ignorance,  whether  it 
would  be  better  to  throw  into  the  electorate 
of  a  great  modern  country  a  mass  of  slaves 
or  a  mass  of  college  graduates — no  such 
question  came  before  the  country  ;  it  was,  as 
we  are  fond  of  saying,  a  situation  and  not  a 
theory  that  confronted  the  country  and  that 
situation  was  this  :  here  in  the  South  we 
had  attempted  to  abolish  slavery  by  act  of 
legislature — it  was  not  abolished.  The  peo 
ple  who  hitherto  held  power  did  not  believe 
in  its  real  abolishment ;  a  great  and  grow 
ing  economic  revolution  fronted  them,  cot 
ton  was  still  king.  They  were  about  to 
solve  that  problem — to  meet  the  Revolu 
tion — according  to  their  former  labor  ideals. 


The  Economic  Revolution  89 

One  could  not  expect  any  other  outcome. 
One  could  not  in  justice  ask  them  volun 
tarily  to  accept  free  black  labor  ;  the  only 
possible  way  to  insure  the  solving  of  that 
economic  problem  with  labor  really  free 
was  to  put  in  the  South  a  political  power 
which  should  make  slavery  in  fact  or  in 
ference  forever  impossible.  This  truth  the 
great  Thaddeus  Stephens  saw,  and  with  a 
statesmanship  far  greater  than  Lincoln's  he 
forced  Negro  suffrage  on  the  South. 

Although  the  new  voters  thus  introduced 
in  the  South  were  crude  and  ignorant,  and 
in  many  ways  ill-fitted  to  rule,  nevertheless 
in  the  fundamental  postulates  of  American 
freedom  and  democracy  they  were  sane  and 
sound.  Some  of  them  were  silly,  some  were 
ignorant,  and  some  were  venal,  but  they 
were  not  as  silly  as  those  who  had  fostered 
slavery  in  the  South,  nor  as  ignorant  as 
those  who  were  determined  to  perpetuate 
it,  and  the  black  voters  of  South  Carolina 
never  stole  half  as  much  as  the  white 


go  The  Negro  in  the  South 

voters  of  Pennsylvania  are  stealing  to 
day. 

The  eternal  monument  to  these  maligned 
victims  of  a  nation's  wrong  is  the  fact  that 
they  began  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  fact 
and  not  merely  attack  it  in  theory,  they 
established  free  schools,  and  they  passed 
laws  on  all  subjects  under  which  the 
white  South  is  still  content  to  live  (see 
Note  8).  If  these  men  had  been  protected 
in  their  legal  rights  by  the  strong  arm 
of  the  government,  they  would  have  been 
able  to  protect  themselves  in  a  generation 
or  so.  They  would  have  increased  in 
intelligence,  responsibility,  and  power,  and 
this  the  South  was  determined  to  prevent. 
The  North  wavered  ;  having  put  its  hand  to 
the  plow  it  looked  back,  and  gradually 
allowed  the  black  peasantry  of  the  South  to 
be  almost  completely  disfranchised.  What 
happened  ? 

The  time  had  passed  for  a  reestablishment 
of  slavery,  but  serfdom  and  peonage  were 


The  Economic  Revolution  91 

still  possible  and  probable.  When  you 
have  the  leading  classes  of  a  country  with 
the  ideal  of  slavery  in  their  minds  and  the 
laboring  classes  ignorant  and  without  po 
litical  power,  there  is  but  one  system  that 
can  ensue  and  that  is  serfdom,  and  through 
serfdom  was  the  second  way  in  which  the 
South  strove  to  meet  its  great  post-bellum 
economic  problem. 

Given  these  premises  the  economic  an 
swer  of  the  South  was,  from  a  business 
standpoint,  perfectly  sound.  The  men 
who,  starting  poor  after  a  miserable  war, 
went  into  the  development  of  the  South, 
went  in  to  make  money — to  use  the  great 
American  thesis,  they  were  "  not  in  busi 
ness  for  their  health."  They  were  going 
to  grant  to  the  laborer  just  as  little  as  they 
must ;  the  laborer  was  unused  to  a  system 
of  free  labor,  he  was  not  a  steady  work 
man,  he  was  not  a  skilled  workman,  he 
had  been  for  two  or  three  hundred  years 
driven  to  his  work,  he  took  no  pride  in  his 


92  The  Negro  in  the  South 

work — how  could  he  take  pride  in  that 
which  hitherto  had  been  the  badge  of  his 
shame  ? 

Now  it  was  not  considered  the  business 
of  the  new  Southern  business  man  to  de 
velop  and  train  the  working  man.  It  was 
his  business,  as  I  have  said,  from  the 
American  point  of  view,  to  make  money. 
And  the  consequence  was  that  he  evolved  a 
peculiarly  ingenious  system  of  land  serf 
dom,  which  bears  many  likenesses  to  the 
serfdom  that  replaced  slavery  in  Europe. 
The  land  belonged  to  the  landlord — it  was 
rented  out  to  the  serf ;  the  serf  was  nomi 
nally  free,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  was 
not  free  at  all ;  he  was  held  to  his  labor  :  he 
rose  with  the  morning  work  bell  of  slavery 
days,  he  was  driven  to  his  labor  by  mounted 
riders,  he  was  whipped  for  delinquencies, 
he  received  no  stipulated  return,  but  on  the 
contrary  the  owner  of  the  land  made  the 
contract,  kept  the  accounts,  and  gave  him 


The  Economic  Revolution  93 

enough  once  or  twice  a  year  to  make  him 
not  too  dissatisfied. 

After  a  time  this  changed  somewhat ;  in 
stead  of  the  land  owner  himself  undertaking 
the  advancing  of  supplies,  a  third  party,  the 
merchant  with  capital,  came  in.  In  order  to 
enforce  such  a  system  it  needed  to  be 
backed  by  a  peculiar  law  system — therefore 
the  business  men  went  into  politics  in  the 
South  with  the  same  result  as  when  busi 
ness  men  go  into  politics  in  the  North. 
Things  were  done  quickly  and  quietly ; 
they  were  done  not  for  the  good  of  people 
who  had  no  political  voice,  but  for  the  good 
of  those  who  wielded  the  political  power, 
i.  e.,  the  business  men  and  land  owners. 
The  laws  were  made  to  favor  the  landlord 
and  the  merchant  and  to  make  it  easy  to 
exploit  the  tenant  and  laborer. 

This  system,  which  still  is  the  rule  of  ag 
ricultural  labor  in  the  black  belt  of  the 
South,  is  not  a  system  of  free  labor ;  it  is 


94  The  Negro  in  the  South 

simply  a  form  of  peonage.  The  black  peon 
is  held  down  by  perpetual  debt  or  petty 
criminal  judgments  ;  his  rent  rises  with  the 
price  of  cotton,  his  chances  to  buy  land  are 
either  non-existent  or  confined  to  infertile 
regions.  Judge  and  jury  are  in  honor 
bound  to  hold  him  down  ;  if  by  accident  or 
miracle  he  escapes  and  becomes  a  land 
holder,  his  property,  civil  and  political 
status  are  still  at  the  mercy  of  the  worst  of 
the  white  voters,  and  his  very  life  at  the  whim 
of  the  mob.  The  power  of  the  individual 
white  patron  to  protect  colored  men  is  still 
great  and  is  often  exercised,  but  this  is  but 
another  argument  against  the  system  :  it  is 
undemocratic  and  un-American,  and  stamps 
on  the  serf  system  its  most  damning  criti 
cism. 

Moreover,  this  second  attempt  to  meet 
the  economic  revolution  of  the  South  is 
failing,  and  its  failure  is  shown  by  the 
scarcity  of  farm  labor,  the  migration  of  Ne 
groes,  and  the  increase  of  crime  and  law- 


The  Economic  Revolution  95 

lessness.  Serfdom  like  slavery  demands  ig 
norance  and  strict  laws.  The  decade  of 
Negro  voting  and  Northern  benevolence  had 
however  given  the  Negro  schools  and  aspi 
ration. 

What  now  has  been  the  reaction  of  this 
group  on  the  environment  thrown  around 
it  since  slavery  days  ? 

The  slaves  had  their  select  classes  in  the 
house  servants  and  the  artisans.  After  free 
dom  came,  the  Negro  made  four  distinct  ef 
forts  to  reach  economic  safety.  The  first 
effort  was  by  means  of  the  select  house-serv 
ant  class  ;  the  second,  by  means  of  com 
petitive  industry ;  the  third,  by  land-own 
ing  ;  and  the  fourth,  by  what  I  shall  call 
the  group  economy. 

First,  let  us  look  at  the  effort  of  the 
house  servants.  The  one  person  under  the 
slave  regime  who  came  nearest  to  escaping 
from  the  toils  of  slavery  and  the  disabilities 
of  caste  was  the  favorite  house  servant. 
This  was  because  the  house  servant  was 


96  The  Negro  in  the  South 

brought  into  contact  with  the  culture  of  the 
master  and  the  family,  because  he  had  of 
ten  the  advantages  of  town  and  city  life, 
was  able  to  gain  some  smattering  of  educa 
tion,  and  also  because  he  was  usually  a 
blood  relative  of  the  master  class.  These 
house  servants,  therefore,  became  the 
natural  leaders  of  the  emancipated  race  and 
the  brunt  of  the  burden  of  reconstruction 
fell  upon  their  shoulders.  When  the  his 
tory  of  this  period  is  carefully  written  it 
will  show  that  few  men  ever  made  a  more 
meritorious  fight  against  overwhelming 
odds. 

Under  free  competition  it  would  have 
been  natural  for  this  class  of  house  servants 
to  enter  the  economic  life  of  the  nation  di 
rectly.  In  some  cases  this  happened,  es 
pecially  in  the  case  of  the  barber  and  the 
caterer.  For  the  most  part,  however,  the 
black  applicant  was  refused  admittance  to 
the  economic  society  of  the  nation.  He 
held  his  own  in  the  semi-servile  work  of 


The  Economic  Revolution  97 

barber  until  he  met  the  charge  of  color  dis 
crimination  in  his  own  race,  and  the  com 
petition  of  foreigners.  The  caterer  was  dis 
placed  by  palatial  hotels  in  which  he  could 
have  no  part. 

On  the  whole,  then,  the  mass  of  house 
servants  soon  found  the  doors  in  their  own 
lines  closed  in  their  faces.  They  could  re 
main  good  servants  but  they  could  not  by 
this  means  often  escape  into  higher 
walks  of  life.  The  better  tenth  of  them 
went  gradually  into  professions  and  thus 
found  economic  independence  for  them 
selves  and  their  children.  The  mass  of 
them  either  remained  house  servants  or 
turned  toward  industry. 

The  second  attempt  of  the  freedmen  to 
ward  economic  safety  lay  in  industry.  It 
was  a  less  ambitious  effort  than  that  of  the 
house  servants,  and  included  larger  num 
bers  of  men.  It  was  characterized  by  a 
large  migration  to  the  towns.  Here  it  was 
that  the  class  of  slave  artisans  made  them- 


98  The  Negro  in  the  South 

selves  felt  in  freedom  and  they  were  joined 
by  numbers  of  unskilled  workmen,  such 
as  steam  railway  hands,  porters,  hostlers, 
etc.  This  class  attracted  considerable  atten 
tion  and  bore  the  brunt  of  the  economic 
battle  in  competition  with  white  work 
ing  men.  It  is  a  class  that  is  growing  and 
in  the  future  it  is  going  to  have  a  large  de 
velopment.  At  present,  however,  its  fight 
is  difficult. 

The  third  effort  of  economic  elevation  was 
by  land  owning.  This  was  the  ideal  toward 
which  the  great  mass  of  black  people  looked. 
They  at  first  thought  that  the  government 
was  going  to  help  them,  and  the  govern 
ment  did  in  a  few  instances,  as  when  Sher 
man  distributed  land  in  Georgia  and  the 
government  sold  South  Carolina  lands  for 
taxes.  For  the  most  part,  however,  the 
Negroes  had  to  buy  their  own  lands  which 
they  did  in  some  cases  by  means  of  their 
bounty  money  for  serving  in  the  army  or 
by  means  of  special  monies  which  they 


The  Economic  Revolution  99 

earned  as  workmen  during  the  war  or  by 
the  help  of  the  former  masters.  Some  too, 
by  the  share  tenant  system  gained  enough 
to  buy  land.  In  this  way  about  200,000  to 
day  own  their  farms  and  thus  approximate 
economic  independence. 

The  fourth  and  last  effort,  which  I  call 
the  Group  Economy,  is  of  great  importance, 
but  is  not  very  well  understood.  It  con 
sists  of  a  cooperative  arrangement  of  in 
dustry  and  service  in  a  group  which  tends 
to  make  the  group  a  closed  economic  circle, 
largely  independent  of  surrounding  whites. 
This  development  explains  many  anomalies 
in  the  situation  of  the  Negro.  Many  people 
think  that  the  colored  barber  is  disappear 
ing,  yet  there  are  more  colored  barbers  in 
the  United  States  to-day  than  ever  before, 
but  a  larger  number  than  ever  cater  to  only 
colored  trade.  The  Negro  lawyer  serves 
almost  exclusively  colored  clientage,  so  that 
his  existence  is  half  forgotten  by  the  white 
world.  The  new  Negro  business  men  are 


loo  The  Negro  in  the  South 

not  successors  of  the  old.  There  used  to  be 
Negro  business  men  in  Northern  cities  and 
a  few  even  in  Southern  cities,  but  they 
catered  to  white  trade ;  the  Negro  business 
man  to-day  caters  to  colored  trade.  So  far 
has  this  gone  to-day  that  in  every  city  in 
the  United  States  which  has  considerable 
Negro  population,  the  colored  group  is 
serving  itself  in  religion,  medical  care, 
legal  advice  and  often  educating  its  chil 
dren.  In  growing  degree  also  it  is  serving 
itself  in  insurance,  houses,  books,  amuse 
ments. 

So  extraordinary  has  been  this  develop 
ment  that  it  forms  a  large  and  growing  part 
in  the  economy  of  perhaps  half  the  Negroes 
of  the  United  States,  and  in  the  case  of  per 
haps  100,000  town  Negroes,  representing  at 
least  300,000  persons,  the  group  economy 
approaches  a  complete  system.  To  these 
we  may  add  the  bulk  of  200,000  farmers 
who  own  their  farms.  Thus  we  have  a 
group  of  half  a  million  who  are  reaching 


The  Economic  Revolution         101 

economic  safety  by  means  of  group  economy 
(see  Note  9). 

Here  then  are  the  two  developments — a 
determined  effort  at  an  established  serfdom 
on  the  part  of  landholding  capitalists,  and  a 
determined  effort  on  the  part  of  freedmen 
and  their  sons  to  attain  economic  inde 
pendence. 

While  both  these  movements  were  pro 
gressing  the  full  change  of  the  industrial 
revolution,  so  long  postponed,  began  to  be 
felt  all  over  the  South ;  the  iron  and  steel 
industry  developed  in  Alabama  and  Ten 
nessee,  coal  mining  in  Tennessee  and  West 
Virginia,  and  cotton  manufacture  in 
Carolina  and  Georgia ;  railways  were  con 
solidated  into  systems  and  extended,  com 
merce  was  organized  and  concentrated. 
The  greatest  single  visible  result  of  this  was 
the  growth  of  cities.  Towns  of  eight 
thousand  and  more  had  a  tenth  of  the 
white  Southerners  in  1860 ;  they  held  a 
seventh  of  a  much  larger  population  in 


102  The  Negro  in  the  South 

1900,  while  a  fifth  were  in  cities  and  vil 
lages.  Still  more  striking  was  the  move 
ment  of  Negroes  ;  only  four  per  cent,  were 
in  cities  before  the  war,  to-day  a  seventh 
are  there. 

The  reason  for  this  is  clear :  the  op 
pression  and  serfdom  of  the  country,  the 
opportunities  of  the  city.  It  was  in  the 
town  and  city  alone  that  the  emerging 
classes,  outside  the  landholders,  were  suc 
cessful,  and  even  the  landholders  were 
helped  by  the  earnings  of  the  city ;  the 
house  servants  with  the  upper  class  of 
barbers  and  caterers,  the  artisans,  the  day 
laborers,  the  professional  men,  including 
the  best  of  the  teachers,  were  in  the  cities, 
and  the  new  group  economy  was  developed 
here. 

On  the  other  hand  one  of  the  inevitable 
expedients  for  fastening  serfdom  on  the 
country  Negro  was  enforced  ignorance. 

The  Negro  school  system  established 
by  the  Negro  reconstruction  governments 


The  Economic  Revolution          103 

reached  its  culmination  in  the  decade  1870- 
1 880.  Since  then  determined  effort  has  been 
made  in  the  country  districts  to  make  the 
Negro  schools  less  efficient.  To-day  these 
schools  are  worse  than  they  were  twenty 
years  ago  ;  the  nominal  term  is  longer  and 
the  enrolment  larger,  but  the  salaries  are  so 
small  that  only  the  poorest  local  talent  can 
teach.  There  is  little  supervision,  there  are 
few  appliances,  few  schoolhouses  and  no 
inspiration.  On  the  other  hand  the  city 
schools  have  usually  improved.  It  was 
natural  that  the  Negro  should  rush  city 
ward  toward  freedom,  education,  and  decent 
wages. 

This  migration  resulted  in  two  things  :  in 
the  increase  and  intensification  of  the  prob 
lems  of  the  city,  and  in  redoubled  effort  to 
keep  the  Negro  laborer  on  the  plantations. 

To  take  the  latter  efforts  first,  we  find 
that  the  efforts  of  the  landlords  to  keep 
Negro  labor  varied  from  force  to  persuasion  : 
force  was  used  by  the  landlords  to  the 


104  The  Negro  in  the  South 

extent  of  actual  peonage,  by  which  Negroes 
were  held  on  plantations  in  large  numbers  ; 
next  to  peonage  for  crime  came  debt  peonage, 
which  used  the  indebtedness  of  the  Negro 
tenants  to  prevent  their  moving  away  ;  then 
came  the  system  of  labor  contracts  and  the 
laws  making  the  breaking  of  a  labor  con 
tract  a  crime  (see  Note  10) ;  after  that  came 
a  crop  of  vagrancy  laws  aimed  at  the  idle 
Negroes  in  city  and  town  and  designed  to 
compel  them  to  work  on  farms,  going  so  far 
in  several  states  as  to  reverse  the  common 
law  principle  and  force  the  person  arrested 
for  vagrancy  to  prove  his  innocence  (see 
Note  11). 

In  order  that  the  farm  laborers  should 
not  be  tempted  away  by  higher  wages, 
penalties  were  laid  on  "  enticing  laborers 
away  "  and  agents  were  compelled  to  take 
out  licenses  which  ran  as  high  as  $2,000  for 
each  county  in  some  states  (see  Note  12). 
Such  laws  and  their  administration  required, 
of  course,  absolute  control  of  the  government 


The  Economic  Revolution          105 

and  courts.  This  was  secured  by  manipula 
tion  and  fraud,  while  at  the  same  time  the 
landlords  of  the  black  belt  usually  opposed 
the  disfranchisement  of  Negroes  lest  such  a 
measure  reduce  their  political  influence 
which  was  based  on  the  Negro  population. 

All  these  measures  were  measures  of  force, 
while  nothing  was  done  to  attract  laborers 
to  the  land.  The  only  real  attraction  of  the 
Negro  to  the  country  was  landowning.  The 
Negroes  had  succeeded  in  buying  land  :  by 
government  gift  and  bounty  money  they 
held  about  three  million  acres  in  1875,  per 
haps  8,000,000  in  1890,  and  12,000,000  in 
1900  ;  but  distinct  efforts  appeared  here  and 
there  to  stop  their  buying  land. 

There  are  still  vast  tracts  of  land  in  the 
South,  that  anybody,  black  or  white,  can 
buy  for  little  or  nothing,  simply  because  it 
is  worth  little  or  nothing.  Some  time,  of 
course,  these  lands  will  become  valuable 
but  they  are  not  valuable  to-day.  Now  the 
Negro  cannot  invest  in  this  land  as  a 


106  The  Negro  in  the  South 

speculation,  for  he  is  too  poor  to  wait.  He 
must  have  land  which  he  knows  how  to 
cultivate,  which  is  near  a  market,  and  which 
is  so  situated  as  to  provide  reasonable  pro 
tection  for  his  family.  There  are  only 
certain  crops  which  he  knows  how  to  culti 
vate.  He  cannot  be  expected  to  learn 
quickly  to  cultivate  crops  which  he  was  not 
taught  to  cultivate  in  the  past.  He  must 
be  within  reach  of  a  market  and  he  must 
have  some  community  life  with  his  own 
people  and  some  protection  from  other 
people. 

All  these  conditions  are  fulfilled  chiefly 
in  the  black  belt.  That  is  the  cotton  region, 
the  crop  which  he  knows  best  how  to  raise ; 
from  certain  parts  of  it  he  can  get  to  the 
market  and  he  has  a  great  black  population 
for  company  and  protection.  But  it  is  pre 
cisely  here  in  the  black  belt  that  it  is  most 
difficult  to  buy  land.  Capitalistic  culture 
of  cotton,  the  high  price  of  cotton,  and  the 
system  of  labor  peonage  have  made  land 


The  Economic  Revolution          107 

high.  Moreover  in  most  of  these  regions  it 
is  considered  bad  policy  to  sell  Negroes  land 
because,  as  has  been  said,  this  "  demoralizes  " 
labor.  Thus  in  the  densest  part  of  the  black 
belt  in  the  South,  the  percentage  of  land 
holding  is  usually  low  among  Negroes. 

The  concentration  of  land-owning  on  the 
other  hand  in  the  hands  of  the  single  white 
proprietors  has  gone  on  to  a  much  larger  ex 
tent  than  the  country  realizes.  This  is 
shown  not  simply  in  the  increase  of  the 
average  size  of  farms  in  the  last  decade  but 
it  must  also  be  remembered  that  the  farms 
do  not  belong  to  single  owners  but  are 
owned  in  groups  of  five,  forty  or  fifty  by 
single  landed  proprietors.  There  are 
140,000  owners  who  own  from  two  to  fifty 
farms  in  the  South  and  there  are  50,000 
owners  who  have  over  twenty  farms 
apiece. 

It  is  not  true  then  to-day  that  land-buy 
ing  for  the  average  colored  farmer  in  the 
South  is  an  easy  thing.  The  land  which 


io8  The  Negro  in  the  South 

has  been  bought  has  been  bought  by 
the  exceptional  men  or  by  the  men  who 
have  had  unusual  opportunity,  who  have 
been  helped  by  their  former  masters  or  by 
some  other  patrons,  who  have  been  aided 
by  members  of  their  own  families  in  the 
North  or  in  the  cities,  or  who  have  escaped 
the  wretched  crop  system  by  some  sudden 
rise  in  the  price  of  cotton,  which  did  not 
enable  the  landlord  to  take  the  whole  eco 
nomic  advantage.  It  is  therefore  in  spite  of 
the  land  system  and  not  because  of  it  that 
the  Negroes  to-day  own  12,000,000  acres  of 
land  (see  Note  13). 

The  net  result  of  the  whole  policy  of  serf 
dom  was  so  to  deplete  the  ranks  of  laborers 
that  a  new  solution  of  the  labor  problem 
must  be  found. 

Here  it  was  that  the  southern  city  came 
forward.  The  city  had  new  significance, 
especially  new  cities  like  Atlanta,  Birming 
ham,  and  Chattanooga  as  contrasted  with 
Charleston  and  Savannah.  They  saw  a 


The  Economic  Revolution          109 

new  industrial  solution  of  the  problem  of 
Negro  labor.  It  was  a  simple  program  : 
Industry  and  disfranchisement ;  the  separa 
tion  of  the  masses  of  the  Negroes  from  all 
participation  in  government,  and  such  tech 
nical  training  as  should  fit  them  to  become 
skilled  working  men. 

There  was  an  arriere  pensee  here  too,  born 
in  the  minds  of  northern  capitalists.  The 
white  southern  working  men  were  becoming 
unionized  by  northern  agitators  ;  here  was  a 
chance  to  keep  them  down  to  reasonable 
demands  by  black  competition  and  the 
threat  of  more  competition  in  the  future. 
Moreover  working  men  without  votes  would 
be  far  more  docile  and  tractable.  Politics 
had  already  spoiled  the  Negroes.  Let  the 
whites  rule  and  the  blacks  work. 

The  plea  was  specious,  it  had  the  sanction 
of  great  names,  of  wealth  and  social  in 
fluence,  and  it  convinced  not  only  those 
who  wanted  to  be  convinced  but  practic 
ally  all  Americans  who  were  eager  to  be 


1 1  o  The  Negro  in  the  South 

relieved  of  troublesome  questions  and  diffi 
cult  public  duties. 

All  the  more  eagerly  was  this  solution 
seized  upon  because  of  the  definite  and  dis 
tinct  promises  which  it  made.  Disfranchise 
the  Negro,  said  the  South,  and  the  race 
problem  is  solved  ;  there  is  no  race  problem 
save  the  menace  of  an  ignorant  and  venal 
vote  ; — relieve  us  from  this  and  the  lion  and 
the  lamb  will  lie  down  together ; — the 
Negro  will  go  peacefully  and  contentedly  to 
work  and  the  whites  will  wax  just  and  rich. 
We  all  remember  with  what  confidence  and 
absolute  certainty  of  conviction  this  pro 
gram  was  announced  when  Mississippi  dis 
franchised  her  Negro  voters  seventeen  years 
ago.  It  was  repeated  twelve  years  ago  in 
South  Carolina,  ten  years  ago  in  Louisiana, 
and  still  more  recently  in  North  Carolina 
and  Alabama. 

What  has  been  the  result?  Is  the  race 
problem  solved?  Is  the  Negro  out  of 
politics  in  the  South?  Has  there  been  a 


The  Economic  Revolution          1 1 1 

single  southern  campaign  in  the  last  twenty 
years  in  which  the  Negro  has  not  figured  as 
the  prime  issue  ?  Have  the  southern  rep 
resentatives  in  Congress  any  settled  con 
victions  or  policy  save  hatred  of  black  men, 
and  can  they  discuss  any  other  matter  ? 
Is  it  not  the  irony  of  fate  that  in  the 
state  that  first  discovered  the  legal  fraud  of 
disfranchisement  a  hot  political  battle  is  to 
day  waging  on  the  old,  old  question :  the 
right  of  black  men  to  vote  ? 

The  reason  for  all  this  is  not  far  to  seek. 
In  modern  industrial  democracy  dis 
franchisement  is  impossible.  The  fate, 
wishes,  and  destiny  of  ten  million  human 
beings  cannot  be  delivered,  sealed  and  bound 
into  the  keeping  of  Dixon,  Tillman,  Vard- 
aman,  and  Nelson  Page.  They  are  bound 
to  vote  even  when  disfranchised. 

Disfranchised  and  voiceless  though  I  am 
in  Georgia  to-day  by  the  illegal  White 
Primary  system,  there  are  still  fifty  con 
gressmen  in  Washington  fraudulently  repre- 


1 1 2  The  Negro  in  the  South 

senting  me  and  my  fellows  in  the  councils 
of  the  nation  (see  Note  14). 

It  was  promised  that  disfranchisement 
would  lead  to  more  careful  attention  to  the 
Negro's  moral  and  economic  advancement. 
It  has  on  the  contrary  stripped  them  naked 
to  their  enemies ;  discriminating  laws  of  all 
sorts  have  followed,  the  administration  of 
other  laws  has  become  harsher  and  more 
unfair,  school  funds  have  been  curtailed  and 
education  discouraged,  and  mobs  and 
murder  have  gone  on. 

If  the  new  policy  has  been  a  farce  politic 
ally  and  socially,  how  much  more  has  it 
failed  as  an  economic  cure-all !  No  sooner 
was  it  proclaimed  from  the  house-tops  than 
the  rift  in  the  lute  appeared.  "  We  do  not 
want  educated  farmers,"  cried  the  land 
lords,  "  we  want  docile  laborers."  "  We 
do  not  want  educated  Negro  artisans,"  cried 
the  white  artisans,  and  they  enforced  their 
demands  by  their  votes  and  by  mob  vio 
lence.  "  We  do  not  want  to  raise  the  Ne- 


The  Economic  Revolution         113 

gro ;  we  want  to  put  him  in  his  place  and 
keep  him  there,"  cried  the  dominant  forces 
of  the  South.  Then  those  northerners  who 
had  lightly  embraced  the  fair  sounding  pro 
gram  of  limited  labor  training  and  dis- 
franchisement  found  themselves  grasping 
the  air. 

Not  only  this,  but  the  South  itself  faced 
a  puzzling  paradox.  The  industrial  revo 
lution  was  demanding  labor ;  it  was  de 
manding  intelligent  labor,  while  the  sup 
posed  political  and  social  exigences  of  the 
situation  called  for  ignorance  and  subserv 
iency.  It  was  an  impossible  contradiction 
and  the  South  to-day  knows  it. 

What  is  it  that  makes  a  successful  labor 
ing  force  ?  It  is  laborers  of  education  and 
natural  intelligence,  reasonably  satisfied 
with  their  conditions,  inspired  with  certain 
ideals  of  life,  and  with  a  growing  sense  of 
self-respect  and  self-reliance.  How  is  the 
caste  system  of  the  South  influencing  the 
Negro  laborer?  It  is  systematically  re- 


114  The  Negro  in  the  South 

striding  his  development ;  it  is  restricting 
his  education  so  that  the  public  common 
schools  of  the  South  except  in  a  few  cities 
are  worse  this  moment  than  they  were 
twenty  years  ago  ;  it  is  seeking  to  kill  self- 
respect  by  putting  upon  the  accident  of 
color  every  mark  of  humiliation  that  it  can 
invent ;  it  is  discouraging  self-reliance  by 
treating  a  class  of  men  as  wards  and  chil 
dren  ;  it  is  killing  ambition  by  drawing  a 
color  line  instead  of  a  line  of  desert  and  ac 
complishment  ;  and  finally,  through  these 
things,  it  is  encouraging  crime,  and  by  the 
unintelligent  and  brutal  treatment  of  crim 
inals,  it  is  developing  more  crime. 

This  general  attitude  toward  the  main 
laboring  class  reflects  itself  less  glaringly 
but  as  certainly  in  the  treatment  even  of 
white  laborers.  So  long  as  white  labor 
must  compete  with  black  labor,  it  must  ap 
proximate  black  labor  conditions — long 
hours,  small  wages,  child  labor,  labor  of 
women,  and  even  peonage.  Moreover  it 


The  Economic  Revolution          115 

can  raise  itself  above  black  labor  only  by  a 
legalized  caste  system  which  will  cut  off 
competition  and  this  is  what  the  South  is 
straining  every  nerve  to  create. 

The  last  fatal  campaign  in  Georgia  which 
culminated  in  the  Atlanta  Massacre  was  an 
attempt,  fathered  by  conscienceless  politi 
cians,  to  arouse  the  prejudices  of  the  rank 
and  file  of  white  laborers  and  farmers 
against  the  growing  competition  of  black 
men,  so  that  black  men  by  law  could  be 
forced  back  to  subserviency  and  serfdom. 
It  succeeded  so  well  that  smouldering  hate 
burst  into  flaming  murder  before  the  poli 
ticians  could  curb  it. 

There  is,  however,  a  limit  to  this  sort  of 
thing.  The  day  when  mobs  can  success 
fully  cow  the  Negro  to  willing  slavery  is 
past.  The  Atlanta  Negroes  shot  back  and 
shot  to  kill,  and  that  stopped  the  riot  with 
a  certain  suddenness  (see  Note  15).  The 
South  is  realizing  that  lawlessness  and 
economic  advance  cannot  coexist.  If  the 


1 16  The  Negro  in  the  South 

wonderful  industrial  revolution  is  to  develop 
unhindered,  the  South  must  have  law  and 
order  and  it  must  have  intelligent  workmen. 

It  is  only  a  question  of  time  when  white 
working  men  and  black  working  men  will 
see  their  common  cause  against  the  ag 
gressions  of  exploiting  capitalists.  Already 
there  are  signs  of  this  :  white  and  black 
miners  are  working  as  a  unit  in  Alabama  ; 
white  and  black  masons  are  in  one  union 
in  Atlanta  (see  Note  16).  The  economic 
strength  of  the  Negro  cannot  be  beaten  into 
weakness,  and  therefore  it  must  be  taken 
into  partnership,  and  this  the  Southern 
white  working  man,  befuddled  by  prejudice 
as  he  is,  begins  dimly  to  realize. 

It  is  this  paradox  that  brings  us  to-day  in 
the  South  to  a  fourth  solution  of  the  prob 
lem  :  Immigration.  The  voice  that  calls 
foreign  immigrants  southward  to-day  is  not 
single  but  double.  First,  the  exploiter  of 
common  labor  wishes  to  exploit  this  new 
labor  just  as  formerly  he  exploited  Negro 


The  Economic  Revolution          117 

labor.  On  the  other  hand  the  far-sighted 
ones  know  that  the  present  freedom  of 
labor  exploitation  must  pass — that  some 
time  or  other  the  industrial  system  of  the 
South  must  be  made  to  conform  more  and 
more  to  the  growing  sense  of  industrial 
justice  in  the  North  and  in  the  civilized 
world.  Consequently  the  second  object  of 
the  immigration  philosopher  is  to  make 
sure  that,  when  the  rights  of  the  laborer 
come  to  be  recognized  in  the  South,  that 
laborer  will  be  white,  and  just  so  far  as  pos 
sible  the  black  laborer  will  still  be  forced 
down  below  the  white  laborer  until  he  be 
comes  thoroughly  demoralized  or  extinct. 

The  query  is  therefore  :  If  immigration 
turns  toward  the  South  as  it  undoubtedly 
will  in  time,  what  will  become  of  the  Ne 
gro?  The  view  of  the  white  world  is 
usually  that  there  are  two  possibilities. 
First,  that  the  immigrants  will  crush  the 
Negro  utterly ;  or  secondly,  that  by  com 
petition  there  will  come  a  sifting  which  will 


n8  The  Negro  in  the  South 

lead   to  the  survival  of  the  best  in  both 
groups  of  laborers. 

Let  us  consider  these  possibilities.  First 
it  is  certain  that  so  far  as  the  Negroes  are 
land  holders,  and  so  far  as  they  belong 
to  a  self-employing,  self-supplying  group 
economy,  no  possible  competition  from 
without  can  disturb  them.  I  have  shown 
already  how  rapidly  this  system  is  grow 
ing.  Further  than  that,  there  is  a  large 
group  of  Negroes  who  have  already  gained 
an  assured  place  in  the  national  economy 
as  artisans,  servants,  and  laborers.  The 
worst  of  these  may  be  supplanted,  but  the 
best  could  not  be  unless  there  came  a  sud 
den  unprecedented  and  improbable  influx 
of  skilled  foreign  labor.  A  slow  infiltration 
of  foreigners  cannot  displace  the  better  class 
of  Negro  workers ;  simply  because  the  grow 
ing  labor  demand  of  the  South  cannot  spare 
them.  If  then  it  is  to  be  merely  a  matter 
of  ability  to  work,  the  result  of  immigration 
will  on  the  whole  be  beneficial  and  will 


The  Economic  Revolution          1 19 

differentiate  the  good  Negro  workman  from 
the  careless  and  indifferent. 

But  one  element  remains  to  be  considered, 
and  this  is  political  power.  If  the  black 
workman  is  to  remain  disfranchised  while 
the  white  native  and  immigrant  not  only 
has  the  economic  defense  of  the  ballot,  but 
the  power  to  use  it  so  as  to  hem  in  the 
Negro  competitor,  cow  and  humiliate  him 
and  force  him  to  a  lower  plane,  then  the 
Negro  will  suffer  from  immigration. 

It  is  becoming  distinctly  obvious  to  Ne 
groes  that  to-day,  in  modern  economic  or 
ganization,  the  one  thing  that  is  giving  the 
workman  a  chance  is  intelligence  and  polit 
ical  power,  and  that  it  is  utterly  impossible 
for  a  moment  to  suppose  that  the  Negro  in 
the  South  is  going  to  hold  his  own  in  the 
new  competition  with  immigrants  if,  on  the 
one  hand,  the  immigrant  has  access  to  the 
best  schools  of  the  community  and  has 
equal  political  power  with  other  men  to  de 
fend  his  rights  and  to  assert  his  wishes, 


120  The  Negro  in  the  South 

while,  on  the  other  hand,  his  black  compet 
itor  is  not  only  weighed  down  by  past  deg 
radation,  but  has  few  or  no  schools  and  is 
disfranchised. 

The  question  then  as  to  what  will  happen 
in  the  South  when  immigration  comes,  is  a 
very  simple  question.  If  the  Negro  is  kept 
disfranchised  and  ignorant  and  if  the  new 
foreign  immigrants  are  allowed  access  to  the 
schools  and  given  votes  as  they  undoubtedly 
will  be,  then  there  can  ensue  only  accen 
tuated  race  hatred,  the  spread  of  poverty 
and  disease  among  Negroes,  the  increase  of 
crime,  and  the  gradual  murder  of  the  eight 
millions  of  black  men  who  live  in  the  South 
except  in  so  far  as  they  escape  North  and 
bring  their  problems  there  as  thousands 
will. 

If  on  the  contrary,  with  the  coming  of 
the  immigrants  to  the  South,  there  is  given 
to  the  Negro  equal  educational  opportunity 
and  the  chance  to  cast  his  vote  like  a  man 
and  be  counted  as  a  man  in  the  councils  of 


The  Economic  Revolution         121 

the  county,  city,  state  and  nation,  then 
there  will  ensue  that  competition  between 
men  in  the  industrial  world  which,  if  it  is 
not  altogether  just,  is  at  least  better  than 
slavery  and  serfdom. 

There  of  course  could  be  strong  argument 
that  the  nation  owes  the  Negro  something 
better  than  harsh  industrial  competition 
just  after  slavery,  but  the  Negro  does  not 
ask  the  payment  of  debts  that  are  dead. 
He  is  perfectly  willing  to  come  into  compe 
tition  with  immigrants  from  any  part  of  the 
world,  to  welcome  them  as  human  beings 
and  as  fellows  in  the  struggle  for  life,  to 
struggle  with  them  and  for  them  and  for  a 
greater  South  and  a  better  nation.  But  the 
black  man  certainly  has  a  right  to  ask, 
when  he  starts  into  this  race,  that  he  be  al 
lowed  to  start  with  hands  untied  and  brain 
unclouded  (see  Note  17). 

Such  in  bare  outline  is  the  economic  his 
tory  of  the  South.  It  is  the  story  of  an  at 
tempt  to  degrade  working  men.  It  failed  in 


122  The  Negro  in  the  South 

1860,  after  it  had  sought  for  centuries  to  re 
duce  laborers  to  the  level  of  purchasable 
cattle;  it  failed  in  1870,  after  a  fearful 
catastrophe  while  endeavoring  to  revive 
this  system  under  another  name ;  it  has 
failed  since  then  satisfactorily  to  maintain 
the  present  rural  serfdom  or  to  establish  a 
disfranchised  caste  of  artisans ;  and  it  will 
fail  in  the  future  to  keep  the  stubbornly 
up-struggling  masses  of  black  laborers  down, 
by  shackling  their  souls  and  loading  im 
migrants  atop  of  them.  It  will  always  fail 
unless  indeed,  as  sometimes  seems  possible, 
both  Church  and  State  in  America  shall  re 
fuse  longer  to  listen  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
when  He  said  :  "  Come  unto  Me  all  ye  that 
labor  and  are  heavy-laden,  and  I  will  give 
you  rest. 

"  Take  My  yoke  upon  you  and  learn  of 
Me  ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and 
ye  shall  find  rest  for  your  souls. 

"  For  My  yoke  is  easy  and  My  burden  is 
light." 


CHAPTER  IV 
RELIGION  IN  THE  SOUTH 


CHAPTER  IV 

RELIGION    IN    THE   SOUTH 

IT  is  often  a  nice  question  as  to  which  is  of 
greater  importance  among  a  people — the  way 
in  which  they  earn  their  living,  or  their  at 
titude  toward  life.  As  a  matter  of  fact  these 
two  things  are  but  two  sides  of  the  same 
problem,  for  nothing  so  reveals  the  attitude 
of  a  people  toward  life  as  the  manner  in 
which  they  earn  their  living ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  earning  of  a  living  depends 
in  the  last  analysis  upon  one's  estimate  of 
what  life  really  is.  So  that  these  two  ques 
tions  that  I  am  discussing  with  regard  to  the 
South  are  intimately  bound  up  with  each 
other. 

If  we  have  studied  the  economic  de 
velopment  of  the  South  carefully,  then  we 
have  already  seen  something  of  its  attitude 
toward  life  ;  the  history  of  religion  in  the 


1 26  The  Negro  in  the  South 

South  means  a  study  of  these  same  facts 
over  which  we  have  gone,  from  a  different 
point  of  view.  Moreover,  as  the  economic 
history  of  the  South  is  in  effect  the  eco 
nomics  of  slavery  and  the  Negro  problem,  so 
the  essence  of  a  study  of  religion  in  the 
South  is  a  study  of  the  ethics  of  slavery 
and  emancipation. 

It  is  very  difficult  of  course  for  one  who 
has  not  seen  the  practical  difficulties  that 
surround  a  people  at  any  particular  time  in 
their  battle  with  the  hard  facts  of  this 
world,  to  interpret  with  sympathy  their 
ideals  of  life ;  and  this  is  especially  diffi 
cult  when  the  economic  life  of  a  nation  has 
been  expressed  by  such  a  discredited  word 
as  slavery.  If,  then,  we  are  to  study  the 
history  of  religion  in  the  South,  we  must 
first  of  all  divest  ourselves  of  prejudice, 
pro  and  con  ;  we  must  try  to  put  ourselves 
in  the  place  of  those  who  are  seeking  to 
read  the  riddle  of  life  and  grant  to  them 
about  the  same  general  charity  and  the 


Religion  in  the  South  127 

same  general  desire  to  do  right  that  we  find 
in  the  average  human  being.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  must  not,  in  striving  to  be  char 
itable,  be  false  to  truth  and  right.  Slavery 
in  the  United  States  was  an  economic  mis 
take  and  a  moral  crime.  This  we  cannot 
forget.  Yet  it  had  its  excuses  and  mitiga 
tions.  These  we  must  remember. 

When  in  the  seventeenth  century  there 
grew  up  in  the  New  World  a  system  of 
human  slavery,  it  was  not  by  any  means  a 
new  thing.  There  were  slaves  and  slavery 
in  Europe,  not,  to  be  sure,  to  a  great  ex 
tent,  but  none  the  less  real.  The  Christian 
religion,  however,  had  come  to  regard  it  as 
wrong  and  unjust  that  those  who  partook 
of  the  privileges  and  hopes  and  aspirations 
of  that  religion  should  oppress  each  other 
to  the  extent  of  actual  enslavement.  The 
idea  of  human  brotherhood  in  the  seven 
teenth  century  was  of  a  brotherhood  of  co 
religionists.  When  it  came  to  the  dealing 
of  Christian  with  heathen,  however,  the 


1 28  The  Negro  in  the  South 

century  saw  nothing  wrong  in  slavery ; 
rather,  theoretically,  they  saw  a  chance  for 
a  great  act  of  humanity  and  religion.  The 
slaves  were  to  be  brought  from  heathenism 
to  Christianity,  and  through  slavery  the 
benighted  Indian  and  African  were  to  find 
their  passport  into  the  kingdom  of  God. 
This  theory  of  human  slavery  was  held  by 
Spaniards,  French,  and  English.  It  was 
New  England  in  the  early  days  that  put 
the  echo  of  it  in  her  codes  (see  Note  18) 
and  recognition  of  it  can  be  seen  in  most  of 
the  colonies. 

But  no  sooner  had  people  adopted  this 
theory  than  there  came  the  insistent  and 
perplexing  question  as  to  what  the  status  of 
the  heathen  slave  was  to  be  after  he  was 
Christianized  and  baptized  ;  and  even  more 
pressing,  what  was  to  be  the  status  of  his 
children  ? 

It  took  a  great  deal  of  bitter  heart  search 
ing  for  the  conscientious  early  slave-holders 
to  settle  this  question.  The  obvious  state 


Religion  in  the  South  129 

of  things  was  that  the  new  convert  awoke 
immediately  to  the  freedom  of  Christ  and 
became  a  freeman.  But  while  this  was  the 
theoretical,  religious  answer,  and  indeed  the 
answer  which  was  given  in  several  instances, 
the  practice  soon  came  into  direct  and  per 
plexing  conflict  with  the  grim  facts  of 
economic  life. 

Here  was  a  man  who  had  invested  his 
money  and  his  labor  in  slaves  ;  he  had  done 
it  with  dependence  on  the  institution  of 
property.  Could  he  be  deprived  of  his 
property  simply  because  his  slaves  were 
baptized  afterward  into  a  Christian  church  ? 
Very  soon  such  economic  reasoning  swept 
away  the  theological  dogma  and  it  was  ex 
pressly  declared  in  colony  after  colony  that 
baptism  did  not  free  the  slaves  (see  Note 
19).  This,  of  course,  put  an  end  to  the  old 
doctrine  of  the  heathen  slave  and  it  was 
necessary  for  the  church  to  arrange  for 
itself  a  new  theory  by  which  it  could  ame 
liorate,  if  not  excuse,  the  position  of  the 


130  The  Negro  in  the  South 

slave.  The  next  question  was  naturally 
that  of  the  children  of  slaves  born  in  Chris 
tianity  and  the  church  for  a  time  hedged 
unworthily  on  the  subject  by  consigning  to 
perpetual  slavery  the  children  of  heathen 
but  not  those  born  of  Christian  parents  ; 
this  was  satisfactory  for  the  first  generation 
but  it  fell  short  of  the  logic  of  slavery 
later,  and  a  new  adjustment  was  demanded. 
Here  again  this  was  not  found  difficult. 
In  Virginia  there  had  been  built  up  the  be 
ginnings  of  a  feudal  aristocracy.  Men  saw 
nothing  wrong  or  unthinkable  in  the  situa 
tion  as  it  began  to  develop,  but  rather  some 
thing  familiar.  At  the  head  of  the  feudal 
manor  was  the  lord,  or  master,  beneath 
him  the  under-lord  or  overseers  and  then 
the  artisans,  retainers,  the  free  working  men 
and  lastly  the  serfs,  slaves  or  servants  as 
they  were  called.  The  servant  was  not  free 
and  yet  he  was  not  theoretically  exactly  a 
slave,  and  the  laws  of  Virginia  were  rather 
careful  to  speak  very  little  of  slaves. 


Religion  in  the  South  131 

Serfdom  in  America  as  in  Europe  was  to 
be  a  matter  of  status  or  position  and  not  of 
race  or  blood,  and  the  law  of  the  South  in 
the  seventeenth  and  early  eighteenth  cen 
turies  made  little  or  no  distinction  between 
black  and  white  bondservants  save  in  the 
time  of  their  service.  The  idea,  felt  rather 
than  expressed,  was  that  here  in  America 
we  were  to  have  a  new  feudalism  suited  to 
the  new  country.  At  the  top  was  the  gov 
ernor  of  the  colony  representing  the  majesty 
of  the  English  king,  at  the  bottom  the 
serfs  or  slaves,  some  white,  most  of  them 
black. 

Slavery  therefore  was  gradually  trans 
formed  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  into  a  social  status  out  of  which 
a  man,  even  a  black  man,  could  escape  and 
did  escape  ;  and,  no  matter  what  his  color 
was,  when  he  became  free,  he  became  free 
in  the  same  sense  that  other  people  were. 
Thus  it  was  that  there  were  free  black 
voters  in  the  southern  colonies  (Virginia 


132  The  Negro  in  the  South 

and  the  Carolinas)  in  the  early  days  con 
cerning  whose  right  to  vote  there  was  less 
question  than  there  is  concerning  my  right 
to  vote  now  in  Georgia  (see  Note  20). 

The  church  recognized  the  situation  and 
the  Episcopal  church  especially  gave  itself 
easily  to  this  new  conception.  This  church 
recognized  the  social  gradation  of  men  ;  all 
souls  were  equal  in  the  sight  of  God,  but 
there  were  differences  in  worldly  consider 
ation  and  respect,  and  consequently  it  was 
perfectly  natural  that  there  should  be  an 
aristocracy  at  the  top  and  a  group  of  serfs 
at  the  bottom. 

Meantime,  however,  America  began  to  be 
stirred  by  a  new  democratic  ideal ;  there 
came  the  reign  of  that  ruler  of  men,  Andrew 
Jackson ;  there  came  the  spread  of  the 
democratic  churches,  Methodist  and  Baptist, 
and  the  democratization  of  other  churches. 
Now  when  America  became  to  be  looked 
upon  more  and  more  as  the  dwelling  place 
of  free  and  equal  men  and  when  the  Method- 


Religion  in  the  South  133 

ist  and,  particularly,  the  Baptist  churches 
went  down  into  the  fields  and  proselyted 
among  the  slaves,  a  thing  which  the  more 
aristocratic  Episcopal  church  had  never 
done  (see  Note  21),  there  came  new  ques 
tions  and  new  heart-searchings  among  those 
who  wanted  to  explain  the  difficulties  and 
to  think  and  speak  clearly  in  the  midst  of 
their  religious  convictions. 

As  such  people  began  to  look  round  them 
the  condition  of  the  slaves  appalled  them. 
The  Presbyterian  Synod  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia  declared  in  1833  :  "  There  are 
over  two  millions  of  human  beings  in  the 
condition  of  heathen  and  some  of  them  in  a 
worse  condition.  They  may  be  justly  con 
sidered  the  heathen  of  this  country,  and 
will  bear  a  comparison  with  heathen  in  any 
country  in  the  world.  The  Negroes  are 
destitute  of  the  gospel,  and  ever  will  be 
under  the  present  state  of  things.  In  the 
vast  field  extending  from  an  entire  state  be 
yond  the  Potomac  [i.  e.,  Maryland]  to  the 


134  The  Negro  in  the  South 

Sabine  River  [at  the  time  our  southwestern 
boundary]  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Ohio,  there  are,  to  the  best  of  our  knowl 
edge,  not  twelve  men  exclusively  devoted 
to  the  religious  instruction  of  the  Negroes. 
In  the  present  state  of  feeling  in  the  South, 
a  ministry  of  their  own  color  could  neither 
be  obtained  nor  tolerated. 

"  But  do  not  the  Negroes  have  access  to 
the  gospel  through  the  stated  ministry  of 
the  whites  ?  We  answer,  no.  The  Negroes 
have  no  regular  and  efficient  ministry ;  as 
a  matter  of  course,  no  churches  ;  neither  is 
there  sufficient  room  in  the  white  churches 
for  their  accommodation.  We  know  of  but 
five  churches  in  the  slave-holding  states 
built  expressly  for  their  use.  These  are  all 
in  the  state  of  Georgia.  We  may  now  in 
quire  whether  they  enjoy  the  privileges  of 
the  gospel  in  their  own  houses,  and  on  our 
plantations?  Again  we  return  a  negative 
answer.  They  have  no  Bibles  to  read  by 
their  own  firesides.  They  have  no  family 


Religion  in  the  South  135 

altars ;  and  when  in  affliction,  sickness,  or 
death,  they  have  no  minister  to  address  to 
them  the  consolations  of  the  gospel,  nor  to 
bury  them  with  appropriate  services." 

The  same  synod  said  in  1834:  "  The 
gospel,  as  things  now  are,  can  never  be 
preached  to  the  two  classes  (whites  and 
blacks)  successfully  in  conjunction.  The 
galleries  or  back  seats  on  the  lower  floor  of 
white  churches  are  generally  appropriated 
to  the  Negroes,  when  it  can  be  done  without 
inconvenience  to  the  whites.  When  it  can 
not  be  done  conveniently,  the  Negroes  must 
catch  the  gospel  as  it  escapes  through  the 
doors  and  windows.  If  the  master  is  pious, 
the  house  servants  alone  attend  family 
worship,  and  frequently  few  of  them,  while 
the  field  hands  have  no  attention  at  all. 
So  far  as  masters  are  engaged  in  the  work 
[of  religious  instruction  of  slaves],  an  al 
most  unbroken  silence  reigns  on  this  vast 
field." 

The  Rev.  C.  C.  Jones,  a  Georgian  and 


136  The  Negro  in  the  South 

ardent  defender  of  slavery  (see  Note  22) 
says  of  the  period  1790-1820:  "It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  religious  and 
physical  condition  of  the  Negroes  were  both 
improved  during  this  period.  Their  in 
crease  was  natural  and  regular,  ranging 
every  ten  years  between  thirty-four  and 
thirty-six  per  cent.  As  the  old  stock  from 
Africa  died  out  of  the  country,  the  grosser 
customs,  ignorance,  and  paganism  of  Africa 
died  with  them.  Their  descendants,  the 
country-born,  were  better  looking,  more 
intelligent,  more  civilized,  more  susceptible 
of  religious  impressions. 

"  On  the  whole,  however,  but  a  minority 
of  the  Negroes,  and  that  a  small  one,  attended 
regularly  the  house  of  God,  and  taking  them 
as  a  class,  their  religious  instruction  was  ex 
tensively  and  most  seriously  neglected." 

And  of  the  decade  1830-40,  he  insists  : 
"  We  cannot  cry  out  against  the  Papists  for 
withholding  the  Scriptures  from  the  com 
mon  people  and  keeping  them  in  ignorance 


Religion  in  the  South  137 

of  the  way  of  life,  for  we  withhold  the  Bible 
from  our  servants,  and  keep  them  in  ig 
norance  of  it,  while  we  will  not  use  the 
means  to  have  it  read  and  explained  to 
them." 

Such  condition  stirred  the  more  radical- 
minded  toward  abolition  sentiments  and 
the  more  conservative  toward  renewed  effort 
to  evangelize  and  better  the  condition  of 
the  slaves.  This  condition  was  deplorable 
as  Jones  pictures  it.  "  Persons  live  and  die 
in  the  midst  of  Negroes  and  know  com 
paratively  little  of  their  real  character. 
They  have  not  the  immediate  management 
of  them.  They  have  to  do  with  them  in 
the  ordinary  discharge  of  their  duty  as 
servants,  further  than  this  they  institute  no 
inquiries ;  they  give  themselves  no  trouble. 

"  The  Negroes  are  a  distinct  class  in  the 
community,  and  keep  themselves  very  much 
to  themselves.  They  are  one  thing  before 
the  whites  and  another  before  their  own 
color.  Deception  before  the  former  is  char- 


138  The  Negro  in  the  South 

acteristic  of  them,  whether  bond  or  free, 
throughout  the  whole  United  States.  It  is 
habit,  a  long  established  custom,  which 
descends  from  generation  to  generation. 
There  is  an  upper  and  an  under  current. 
Some  are  contented  with  the  appearance  on 
the  surface ;  others  dive  beneath.  Hence 
the  diversity  of  impressions  and  represen 
tations  of  the  moral  and  religious  condition 
of  the  Negroes.  Hence  the  disposition  of 
some  to  deny  the  darker  pictures  of  their 
more  searching  and  knowing  friends." 

He  then  enumerates  the  vice  of  the 
slaves  :  "  The  divine  institution  of  marriage 
depends  for  its  perpetuity,  sacredness,  and 
value,  largely  upon  the  protection  given  it 
by  the  law  of  the  land.  Negro  marriages 
are  neither  recognized  nor  protected  by  law. 
The  Negroes  receive  no  instruction  on  the 
nature,  sacredness,  and  perpetuity  of  the 
institution  ;  at  any  rate  they  are  far  from 
being  duly  impressed  with  these  things. 
They  are  not  required  to  be  married  in  any 


Religion  in  the  South  139 

particular  form,  nor  by  any  particular  per 


sons." 


He  continues  :  "  Hence,  as  may  well  be 
imagined,  the  marriage  relation  loses  much 
of  the  sacredness  and  perpetuity  of  its  char 
acter.  It  is  a  contract  of  convenience, 
profit,  or  pleasure,  that  may  be  entered 
into  and  dissolved  at  the  will  of  the  parties, 
and  that  without  heinous  sin,  or  the  injury 
of  the  property  or  interests  of  any  one. 
That  which  they  possess  in  common  is 
speedily  divided,  and  the  support  of  the 
wife  and  children  falls  not  upon  the  hus 
band,  but  upon  the  master.  Protracted 
sickness,  want  of  industrial  habits,  of  con 
geniality  of  disposition,  or  disparity  of  age, 
are  sufficient  grounds  for  a  separation." 

Under  such  circumstances,  "  polygamy  is 
practiced  both  secretly  and  openly."  Un- 
cleanness,  infanticide,  theft,  lying,  quarrel 
ing,  and  fighting  are  noted,  and  the  words 
of  Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney  in  1829 
are  recalled :  "  There  needs  no  stronger 


140  The  Negro  in  the  South 

illustration  of  the  doctrine  of  human  de 
pravity  than  the  state  of  morals  on  planta 
tions  in  general.  Besides  the  mischievous 
tendency  of  bad  example  in  parents  and 
elders,  the  little  Negro  is  often  taught  by 
these  natural  instructors  that  he  may  com 
mit  any  vice  that  he  can  conceal  from  his 
superiors,  and  thus  falsehood  and  deception 
are  among  the  earliest  lessons  they  imbibe. 
Their  advance  in  years  is  but  a  progression 
to  the  higher  grades  of  iniquity.  The 
violation  of  the  Seventh  Commandment  is 
viewed  in  a  more  venial  light  than  in  fash 
ionable  European  circles.  Their  depreda 
tions  of  rice  have  been  estimated  to  amount 
to  twenty-five  per  cent,  of  the  gross  average 
of  crops." 

John  Randolph  of  Roanoke  once  visited 
a  lady  and  "  found  her  surrounded  with 
her  seamstresses,  making  up  a  quantity  of 
clothing.  '  What  work  have  you  in  hand  ?  ' 
'  O  sir,  I  am  preparing  this  clothing  to  send 
to  the  poor  Greeks.'  On  taking  leave  at 


Religion  in  the  South  141 

the  steps  of  her  mansion,  he  saw  some  of 
her  servants  in  need  of  the  very  clothing 
which  their  tender-hearted  mistress  was 
sending  abroad.  He  exclaimed,  '  Madam, 
madam,  the  Greeks  are  at  your  door  ! ' 

One  natural  solution  of  this  difficulty  was 
to  train  teachers  and  preachers  for  the 
slaves  from  among  their  own  number.  The 
old  Voodoo  priests  were  passing  away  and 
already  here  and  there  new  spiritual  leaders 
of  the  Negroes  began  to  arise.  Accounts  of 
several  of  these,  taken  from  "  The  Negro 
Church,"  will  be  given. 

Among  the  earliest  was  Harry  Hosier 
who  traveled  with  the  Methodist  Bishop 
Asbury  and  often  filled  appointments  for 
him.  George  Leile  and  Andrew  Bryan 
were  preachers  whose  life  history  is  of  in 
tense  interest.  "  George  Leile  or  Lisle, 
sometimes  called  George  Sharp,  was  born  in 
Virginia  about  1750.  His  master  (Mr. 
Sharp)  some  time  before  the  American  war 
removed  and  settled  in  Burke  County,  Geor- 


The  Negro  in  the  South 

gia.  Mr.  Sharp  was  a  Baptist  and  a  deacon 
in  a  Baptist  church,  of  which  Rev.  Mat 
thew  Moore  was  pastor.  George  was  con 
verted  and  baptized  under  Mr.  Moore's  min 
istry.  The  church  gave  him  liberty  to 
preach. 

"  About  nine  months  after  George  Leile 
left  Georgia,  Andrew,  surnamed  Bryan,  a 
man  of  good  sense,  great  zeal,  and  some 
natural  elocution,  began  to  exhort  his 
black  brethren  and  friends.  He  and  his 
followers  were  reprimanded  and  forbidden 
to  engage  further  in  religious  exercises. 
He  would,  however,  pray,  sing,  and  en 
courage  his  fellow  worshipers  to  seek  the 
Lord. 

"  Their  persecution  was  carried  to  an  in 
human  extent.  Their  evening  assemblies 
were  broken  up  and  those  found  present 
were  punished  with  stripes.  Andrew 
Bryan  and  Sampson,  his  brother,  converted 
about  a  year  after  him,  were  twice  impris 
oned,  and  they  with  about  fifty  others  were 


Religion  in  the  South  143 

whipped.  When  publicly  whipped,  and 
bleeding  under  his  wounds,  Andrew  de 
clared  that  he  not  only  rejoiced  to  be 
whipped,  but  would  gladly  suffer  death  for 
the  cause  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  while  he 
had  life  and  opportunity  he  would  con 
tinue  to  preach  Christ.  He  was  faithful  to 
his  vow  and,  by  patient  continuance  in  well 
doing,  he  put  to  silence  and  shamed  his  ad 
versaries,  and  influential  advocates  and 
patrons  were  raised  up  for  him.  Liberty 
was  given  Andrew  by  the  civil  authority  to 
continue  his  religious  meetings  under  cer 
tain  regulations.  His  master  gave  him  the 
use  of  his  barn  at  Brampton,  three  miles 
from  Savannah,  where  he  preached  for  two 
years  with  little  interruption." 

Lott  Carey  a  free  Virginia  Negro  "  was 
evidently  a  man  of  superior  intellect  and 
force  of  character,  as  is  evidenced  from  the 
fact  that  his  reading  took  a  wide  range — 
from  political  economy,  in  Adam  Smith's 
'  Wealth  of  Nations/  to  the  voyage  of  Cap- 


144  The  Negro  in  the  South 

tain  Cook.  That  he  was  a  worker  as  well 
as  a  preacher  is  true,  for  when  he  decided 
to  go  to  Africa  his  employers  offered  to  raise 
his  salary  from  $800  to  $1,000  a  year.  Re 
member  that  this  was  over  eighty  years  ago. 
Carey  was  not  seduced  by  such  a  flattering 
offer,  for  he  was  determined. 

"  His  last  sermon  in  the  old  First  Church 
in  Richmond  must  have  been  exceedingly 
powerful,  for  it  was  compared  by  an  eye 
witness,  a  resident  of  another  state,  to  the 
burning,  eloquent  appeals  of  George  Whit- 
field.  Fancy  him  as  he  stands  there  in  that 
historic  building  ringing  the  changes  on 
the  word  '  freely,'  depicting  the  willing 
ness  with  which  he  was  ready  to  give  up  his 
life  for  service  in  Africa. 

"  He,  as  you  may  already  know,  was  the 
leader  of  the  pioneer  colony  to  Liberia, 
where  he  arrived  even  before  the  agent  of 
the  Colonization  Society.  In  his  new  home 
his  abilities  were  recognized,  for  he  was 
made  vice  governor,  and  became  governor 


Religion  in  the  South  145 

in  fact  while  Governor  Ashmun  was  absent 
from  the  colony  in  this  country.  Carey  did 
not  allow  his  position  to  betray  the  cause  of 
his  people,  for  he  did  not  hesitate  to  expose 
the  duplicity  of  the  Colonization  Society 
and  even  to  defy  their  authority,  it  would 
seem,  in  the  interests  of  the  people. 

"  While  casting  cartridges  to  defend  the 
colonists  against  the  natives  in  1828,  the 
accidental  upsetting  of  a  candle  caused  an 
explosion  that  resulted  in  his  death. 

"  Carey  is  described  as  a  typical  Negro, 
six  feet  in  height,  of  massive  and  erect 
frame,  with  the  sinews  of  a  Titan.  He  had 
a  square  face,  keen  eyes,  and  a  grave  coun 
tenance.  His  movements  were  measured  ; 
in  short,  he  had  all  the  bearing  and  dignity 
of  a  prince  of  the  blood." 

John  Chavis  was  a  full-blooded  Negro, 
born  in  Granville  County,  N.  C.,  near  Ox 
ford,  in  1763.  He  was  born  free  and  was 
sent  to  Princeton,  studying  privately  under 
Dr.  Witherspoon,  where  he  did  well.  He 


146  The  Negro  in  the  South 

went  to  Virginia  to  preach  to  Negroes.  In 
1802,  in  the  county  court,  his  freedom  and 
character  were  certified  to  and  it  was  de 
clared  that  he  had  passed  "  through  a  reg 
ular  course  of  academic  studies  "  at  what 
is  now  Washington  and  Lee  University. 
In  1805  he  returned  to  North  Carolina, 
where  in  1809  he  was  made  a  licentiate  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church  and  allowed  to 
preach.  His  English  was  remarkably  pure, 
his  manner  impressive,  his  explanations 
clear  and  concise. 

For  a  long  time  he  taught  school  and  had 
the  best  whites  as  pupils — a  United  States 
senator,  the  sons  of  a  chief  justice  of  North 
Carolina,  a  governor  of  the  state  and  many 
others.  Some  of  his  pupils  boarded  in  the 
family,  and  his  school  was  regarded  as  the 
best  in  the  State.  "  All  accounts  agree  that 
John  Chavis  was  a  gentleman,"  and  he  was 
received  socially  among  the  best  whites  and 
asked  to  table.  In  1830  he  was  stopped 
from  preaching  by  the  law.  Afterward 


Religion  in  the  South  147 

he  taught  a  school  for  free  Negroes  in 
Raleigh. 

Henry  Evans  was  a  full-blooded  Virginia 
free  Negro,  and  was  the  pioneer  of  Method 
ism  in  Fayetteville,  N.  C.  He  found  the 
Negroes  there,  about  1800,  without  any 
religious  instruction.  He  began  preaching 
and  the  town  council  ordered  him  away ; 
he  continued  and  whites  came  to  hear  him. 
Finally  the  white  auditors  outnumbered  the 
blacks  and  sheds  were  erected  for  Negroes 
at  the  side  of  the  church.  The  gathering 
became  a  regular  Methodist  Church,  with  a 
white  and  Negro  membership,  but  Evans 
continued  to  preach.  He  exhibited  "  rare 
self-control  before  the  most  wretched  of 
castes  !  Henry  Evans  did  much  good,  but 
he  would  have  done  more  good  had  his 
spirit  been  untrammeled  by  this  sense  of 
inferiority." 

His  dying  words  uttered  as  he  stood,  aged 
and  bent  beside  his  pulpit,  are  of  singular 
pathos  :  "I  have  come  to  say  my  last  word 


148  The  Negro  in  the  South 

to  you.  It  is  this :  None  but  Christ. 
Three  times  have  I  had  my  life  in  jeopardy 
for  preaching  the  gospel  to  you.  Three 
times  I  have  broken  ice  on  the  edge  of  the 
water  and  swam  across  the  Cape  Fear  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  you  ;  and,  if  in  my  last 
hour  I  could  trust  to  that,  or  anything  but 
Christ  crucified,  for  my  salvation,  all  should 
be  lost  and  my  soul  perish  forever." 

Early  in  the  nineteenth  century  Ralph 
Freeman  was  a  slave  in  Anson  County,  N.  C. 
He  was  a  full-blooded  Negro,  and  was  or 
dained  and  became  an  able  Baptist  preacher. 
He  baptized  and  administered  communion, 
and  was  greatly  respected.  When  the 
Baptists  split  on  the  question  of  missions  he 
sided  with  the  anti-mission  side.  Finally 
the  law  forbade  him  to  preach. 

Lunsford  Lane  was  a  Negro  who  bought 
his  freedom  in  Raleigh,  N.  C.,  by  the 
manufacture  of  smoking  tobacco.  He  later 
became  a  minister  of  the  gospel,  and  had 
the  confidence  of  many  of  the  best  people. 


Religion  in  the  South  149 

The  story  of  Jack  of  Virginia  is  best  told 
in  the  words  of  a  Southern  writer  : 

"  Probably  the  most  interesting  case  in 
the  whole  South  is  that  of  an  African 
preacher  of  Nottoway  County,  popularly 
known  as  '  Uncle  Jack,'  whose  services  to 
white  and  black  were  so  valuable  that  a 
distinguished  minister  of  the  Southern 
Presbyterian  Church  felt  called  upon  to 
memorialize  his  work  in  a  biography. 

"  Kidnapped  from  his  idolatrous  parents 
in  Africa,  he.  was  brought  over  in  one  of  the 
last  cargoes  of  slaves  admitted  to  Virginia 
and  sold  to  a  remote  and  obscure  planter  in 
Nottoway  County,  a  region  at  that  time  in 
the  backwoods  and  destitute  particularly  as 
to  religious  life  and  instruction.  He  was 
converted  under  the  occasional  preaching  of 
Rev.  Dr.  John  Blair  Smith,  president  of 
Hampden-Sidney  College,  and  of  Dr.  Will 
iam  Hill  and  Dr.  Archibald  Alexander  of 
Princeton,  then  young  theologues,  and  by 
hearing  the  Scriptures  read. 


150  The  Negro  in  the  South 

11  Taught  by  his  master's  children  to  read, 
he  became  so  full  of  the  spirit  and  knowl 
edge  of  the  Bible  that  he  was  recognized 
among  the  whites  as  a  powerful  expounder 
of  Christian  doctrine,  was  licensed  to  preach 
by  the  Baptist  Church,  and  preached  from 
plantation  to  plantation  within  a  radius  of 
thirty  miles,  as  he  was  invited  by  overseers 
or  masters.  His  freedom  was  purchased  by 
a  subscription  of  whites,  and  he  was  given 
a  home  and  tract  of  land  for  his  support. 
He  organized  a  large  and  orderly  Negro 
church,  and  exercised  such  a  wonderful 
controlling  influence  over  the  private  morals 
of  his  flock  that  masters,  instead  of  punish 
ing  their  slaves,  often  referred  them  to  the 
discipline  of  their  pastor,  which  they  dreaded 
far  more. 

"  He  stopped  a  heresy  among  the  Negroes 
of  Southern  Virginia,  defeating  in  open 
argument  a  famous  fanatical  Negro  preacher 
named  Campbell,  who  advocated  noise  and 
'  the  spirit '  against  the  Bible,  and  winning 


Religion  in  the  South 

over  Campbell's  adherents  in  a  body.  For 
over  forty  years,  and  until  he  was  nearly 
a  hundred  years  of  age,  he  labored  success 
fully  in  public  and  private  among  black  and 
whites,  voluntarily  giving  up  his  preaching 
in  obedience  to  the  law  of  1832,  the  result 
of  '  Old  Nat's  war.' 

"  The  most  refined  and  aristocratic  people 
paid  tribute  to  him,  and  he  was  instrumental 
in  the  conversion  of  many  whites.  Says 
his  biographer,  Rev.  Dr.  William  8.  White : 
'  He  was  invited  into  their  houses,  sat  with 
their  families,  took  part  in  their  social 
worship,  sometimes  leading  the  prayer  at 
the  family  altar.  Many  of  the  most  in 
telligent  people  attended  upon  his  ministry 
and  listened  to  his  sermons  with  great  de 
light.  Indeed,  previous  to  the  year  1825, 
he  was  considered  by  the  best  judges  to  be 
the  best  preacher  in  that  county.  His 
opinions  were  respected,  his  advice  followed, 
and  yet  he  never  betrayed  the  least  symp 
toms  of  arrogance  or  self-conceit. 


152  The  Negro  in  the  South 

"  '  His  dwelling  was  a  rude  log  cabin,  his 
apparel  of  the  plainest  and  coarsest  mate 
rials.'  This  was  because  he  wanted  to  be 
fully  identified  with  his  class.  He  refused 
gifts  of  better  clothing,  saying  '  These  clothes 
are  a  great  deal  better  than  are  generally 
worn  by  people  of  my  color,  and  besides  if 
I  wear  finer  ones  I  find  I  shall  be  obliged  to 
think  about  them  even  at  meeting.'  " 

Thus  slowly,  surely,  the  slave,  in  the  per 
sons  of  such  exceptional  men,  appearing 
here  and  there  at  rare  intervals,  was  per 
sistently  stretching  upward.  The  Negroes 
bade  fair  in  time  to  have  their  leaders.  The 
new  democratic  evangelism  began  to  en 
courage  this,  and  then  came  the  difficulty — 
the  inevitable  ethical  paradox. 

The  good  men  of  the  South  recognized 
the  needs  of  the  slaves.  Here  and  there 
Negro  ministers  were  arising.  What  now 
should  be  the  policy  ?  On  the  part  of  the 
best  thinkers  it  seemed  as  if  men  might 
strive  here,  in  spite  of  slavery,  after  broth- 


Religion  in  the  South  153 

erhood ;  that  the  slaves  should  be  pros 
elyted,  taught  religion,  admitted  to  the 
churches,  and,  notwithstanding  their  civil 
station,  looked  upon  as  the  spiritual 
brothers  of  the  white  communicants.  Much 
was  done  to  make  this  true.  The  condi 
tions  improved  in  a  great  many  respects, 
but  no  sooner  was  there  a  systematic  effort 
to  teach  the  slaves,  even  though  that  teach 
ing  was  confined  to  elementary  religion, 
than  the  various  things  followed  that  must 
follow  all  intellectual  awakenings. 

We  have  had  the  same  thing  in  our  day. 
A  few  Negroes  of  the  South  have  been 
taught,  they  consequently  have  begun  to 
think,  they  have  begun  to  assert  them 
selves,  and  suddenly  men  are  face  to  face 
with  the  fact  that  either  one  of  two  things 
must  happen — either  they  must  stop  teach 
ing  or  these  people  are  going  to  be  men,  not 
serfs  or  slaves.  Not  only  that,  but  to  seek 
to  put  an  awakening  people  back  to  sleep 
means  revolt.  It  meant  revolt  in  the 


154  The  Negro  in  the  South 

eighteenth  century,  when  a  series  of  insur 
rections  and  disturbances  frightened  the 
South  tremendously,  not  so  much  by  their 
actual  extent  as  by  the  possibilities  they 
suggested.  It  was  noticeable  that  many  of 
these  revolts  were  led  by  preachers. 

The  revolution  in  Hayti  greatly  stirred 
th£  South  and  induced  South  Carolina  to 
declare  in  1800 : 

"  It  shall  not  be  lawful  for  any  number 
of  slaves,  free  Negroes,  mulattoes,  or  mesti 
zoes,  even  in  company  with  white  persons, 
to  meet  together  and  assemble  for  the  pur 
pose  of  mental  instruction  or  religious  wor 
ship  either  before  the  rising  of  the  sun  or 
after  the  going  down  of  the  same.  And  all 
magistrates,  sheriffs,  militia  officers,  etc., 
etc.,  are  hereby  vested  with  power,  etc.,  for 
dispersing  such  assemblies." 

On  petition  of  the  white  churches  the 
rigor  of  this  law  was  slightly  abated  in 
1803  by  a  modification  which  forbade  any 
person,  before  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening, 


Religion  in  the  South  155 

"  to  break  into  a  place  of  meeting  wherein 
shall  be  assembled  the  members  of  any  re 
ligious  society  in  this  State,  provided  a  ma 
jority  of  them  shall  be  white  persons,  or 
otherwise  to  disturb  their  devotions  unless 
such  persons,  etc.,  so  entering  said  place  (of 
worship)  shall  first  have  obtained  from 
some  magistrate,  etc.,  a  warrant,  etc.,  in 
case  a  magistrate  shall  be  then  actually 
within  a  distance  of  three  miles  from  such 
place  of  meeting ;  otherwise  the  provisions, 
etc.  (of  the  Act  of  1800)  to  remain  in  full 
force.'1 

So,  too,  in  Virginia  the  Haytian  revolt 
and  the  attempted  insurrection  under 
Gabriel  in  1800  led  to  the  Act  of  1804, 
which  forbade  all  evening  meetings  of 
slaves.  This  was  modified  in  1805  so  as  to 
allow  a  slave,  in  company  with  a  white  per 
son,  to  listen  to  a  white  minister  in  the 
evening.  A  master  was  "  allowed  "  to  em 
ploy  a  religious  teacher  for  his  slaves.  Mis 
sissippi  passed  similar  restrictions. 


156  The  Negro  in  the  South 

By  1822  the  rigor  of  the  South  Carolina 
laws  in  regard  to  Negro  meetings  had 
abated,  especially  in  a  city  like  Charleston, 
and  one  of  the  results  was  the  Vesey  plot. 

41  The  sundry  religious  classes  or  congre 
gations,  with  Negro  leaders  or  local 
preachers,  into  which  were  formed  the  Ne 
gro  members  of  the  various  churches  of 
Charleston,  furnished  Vesey  with  the  first 
rudiments  of  an  organization,  and  at  the 
same  time  with  a  singularly  safe  medium 
for  conducting  his  underground  agitation. 
It  was  customary,  at  that  time,  for  these 
Negro  congregations  to  meet  for  purposes  of 
worship  entirely  free  from  the  presence  of 
whites.  Such  meetings  were  afterward  for 
bidden  to  be  held  except  in  the  presence  of 
at  least  one  representative  of  the  dominant 
race,  but  during  the  three  or  four  years 
prior  to  the  year  1822  they  certainly  offered 
Denmark  Vesey  regular,  easy,  and  safe  op 
portunity  for  preaching  his  gospel  of  liberty 
and  hate.  And  we  are  left  in  no  doubt 


Religion  in  the  South  157 

whatever  in  regard  to  the  uses  to  which  he 
put  those  gatherings  of  blacks. 

"  Like  many  of  his  race,  he  possessed  the 
gift  of  gab,  as  the  silver  in  the  tongue  and 
the  gold  in  the  full  or  thick-lipped 
mouth  are  oftentimes  contemptuously  char 
acterized.  And,  like  many  of  his  race, 
he  was  a  devoted  student  of  the  Bible,  to 
whose  interpretation  he  brought,  like  many 
other  Bible  students  not  confined  to  the 
Negro  race,  a  good  deal  of  imagination  and 
not  a  little  of  superstition,  which,  with  some 
natures,  is  perhaps  but  another  name  for  the 
desires  of  the  heart. 

"  Thus  equipped,  it  is  no  wonder  that 
Vesey,  as  he  pored  over  the  Old  Testament 
scriptures,  found  many  points  of  similitude 
in  the  history  of  the  Jews  and  that  of  the 
slaves  in  the  United  States.  They  were 
both  peculiar  peoples.  They  were  both 
Jehovah's  peculiar  peoples,  one  in  the  past, 
the  other  in  the  present.  And  it  seemed  to 
him  that  as  Jehovah  bent  His  ear,  and  bared 


158  The  Negro  in  the  South 

His  arm  once  in  behalf  of  the  one,  so  would 
He  do  the  same  for  the  other.  It  was  all 
vividly  real  to  his  thought,  I  believe,  for  to 
his  mind  thus  had  said  the  Lord. 

"  He  ransacked  the  Bible  for  apposite 
and  terrible  texts  whose  commands  in  the 
olden  times,  to  the  olden  people,  were  no 
less  imperative  upon  the  new  times  and  the 
new  people.  This  new  people  were  also 
commanded  to  arise  and  destroy  their 
enemies  and  the  city  in  which  they  dwelt, 
'  both  man  and  woman,  young  and  old,  with 
the  edge  of  the  sword.'  Believing  super- 
stitiously  as  he  did  in  the  stern  and 
Nemesis-like  God  of  the  Old  Testament  he 
looked  confidently  for  a  day  of  vengeance 
and  retribution  for  the  blacks.  He  felt,  I 
doubt  not,  something  peculiarly  applicable  to 
his  enterprise  and  intensely  personal  to 
himself  in  the  stern  and  exultant  prophecy 
of  Zachariah,  fierce  and  sanguinary  words, 
which  were  constantly  in  his  mouth : 
4  Then  shall  the  Lord  go  forth  and  fight 


Religion  in  the  South  159 

against  those  nations  as  when  He  fought  in 
the  day  of  battle.'  According  to  Vesey's 
lurid  exegesis  '  those  nations '  in  the  text 
meant  beyond  peradventure  the  cruel 
masters,  and  Jehovah  was  to  go  forth  to 
fight  them  for  the  poor  slaves  and  on  which 
ever  side  fought  that  day  the  Almighty 
God  on  that  side  would  assuredly  rest 
victory  and  deliverance. 

"  It  will  not  be  denied  that  Vesey's  plan 
contemplated  the  total  annihilation  of  the 
white  population  of  Charleston.  Nursing 
for  many  dark  years  the  bitter  wrongs  of 
himself  and  race  had  filled  him  without 
doubt  with  a  mad  spirit  of  revenge  and  had 
given  to  him  a  decided  predilection  for 
shedding  the  blood  of  his  oppressors.  But 
if  he  intended  to  kill  them  to  satisfy  a  de 
sire  for  vengeance  he  intended  to  do  so  also 
on  broader  ground.  The  conspirators,  he 
argued,  had  no  choice  in  the  matter,  but 
were  compelled  to  adopt  a  policy  of  exter 
mination  by  the  necessity  of  their  position. 


160  The  Negro  in  the  South 

The  liberty  of  the  blacks  was  in  the  balance 
of  fate  against  the  lives  of  the  whites.  He 
could  strike  that  balance  in  favor  of  the 
blacks  only  by  the  total  destruction  of  the 
whites.  Therefore  the  whites,  men,  women, 
and  children,  were  doomed  to  death."1 

Vesey's  plot  was  well  laid,  but  the  con 
spirators  were  betrayed. 

Less  than  ten  years  after  this  plot  was 
discovered  and  Vesey  and  his  associates 
hanged,  there  broke  out  the  Nat  Turner  in 
surrection  in  Virginia.  Turner  was  him 
self  a  preacher. 

"  He  was  a  Christian  and  a  man.  He 
was  conscious  that  he  was  a  Man  and  not  a 
'  thing  ' ;  therefore,  driven  by  religious  fanat 
icism,  he  undertook  a  difficult  and  bloody 
task.  Nathaniel  Turner  was  born  in  South 
ampton  County,  Virginia,  October  2,  1800. 
His  master  was  one  Benjamin  Turner,  a 
very  wealthy  and  aristocratic  man.  He 
owned  many  slaves,  and  was  a  cruel  and 

1  Grimke  :  "  Right  on  the  Scaffold." 


Religion  in  the  South  161 

exacting  master.  Young  *  Nat '  was  born 
of  slave  parents,  and  carried  to  his  grave 
many  of  the  superstitions  and  traits  of  his 
father  and  mother.  The  former  was  a 
preacher,  the  latter  a  '  mother  in  Israel.' 
Both  were  unlettered  but,  nevertheless,  very 
pious  people. 

"  The  mother  began  when  Nat  was  quite 
young  to  teach  him  that  he  was  born,  like 
Moses,  to  be  the  deliverer  of  his  race.  She 
would  sing  to  him  snatches  of  wild,  raptur 
ous  songs  and  repeat  portions  of  prophecy 
she  had  learned  from  the  preachers  of  those 
times.  Nat  listened  with  reverence  and 
awe,  and  believed  everything  his  mother- 
said.  He  imbibed  the  deep  religious  char 
acter  of  his  parents,  and  soon  manifested  a 
desire  to  preach.  He  was  solemnly  set 
apart  to  '  the  gospel  ministry  '  by  his  father, 
the  church,  and  visiting  preachers.  He 
was  quite  low  in  stature,  dark,  and  had  the 
genuine  African  features.  His  eyes  were 
small  but  sharp,  and  gleamed  like  fire  when 


162  The  Negro  in  the  South 

he  was  talking  about  his  '  mission '  or 
preaching  from  some  prophetic  passage  of 
scripture.  It  is  said  that  he  never  laughed. 
He  was  a  dreamy  sort  of  a  man,  and  avoided 
the  crowd. 

"  Like  Moses  he  lived  in  the  solitudes  of 
the  mountains  and  brooded  over  the  condi 
tion  of  his  people.  There  was  something 
grand  to  him  in  the  rugged  scenery  that 
nature  had  surrounded  him  with.  He  be 
lieved  that  he  was  a  prophet,  a  leader  raised 
up  by  God  to  burst  the  bolts  of  the  prison- 
house  and  set  the  oppressed  free.  The  thun 
der,  the  hail,  the  storm-cloud,  the  air,  the 
earth,  the  stars,  at  which  he  would  sit  and 
gaze  half  the  night  all  spake  the  language  of 
the  God  of  the  oppressed.  He  was  seldom 
seen  in  a  large  company,  and  never  drank  a 
drop  of  ardent  spirits.  Like  John  the  Bap 
tist,  when  he  had  delivered  his  message,  he 
would  retire  to  the  fastness  of  the  mountain 
or  seek  the  desert,  where  he  could  meditate 
upon  his  great  work." 


Religion  in  the  South  163 

In  the  impression  of  the  Richmond 
Enquirer  of  the  30th  of  August,  1831,  the 
first  editorial  or  leader  is  under  the  caption 
of  "  The  Banditte."  The  editor  says  : 

"  They  remind  one  of  a  parcel  of  blood 
thirsty  wolves  rushing  down  from  the  Alps  ; 
or,  rather,  like  a  former  incursion  of  the 
Indians  upon  the  white  settlements.  Noth 
ing  is  spared ;  neither  age  nor  sex  respected 
— the  helplessness  of  women  and  children 
pleads  in  vain  for  mercy.  .  .  .  The 
case  of  Nat  Turner  warns  us.  No  black 
man  ought  to  be  permitted  to  turn  preacher 
through  the  country.  The  law  must  be  en 
forced,  or  the  tragedy  of  Southampton  ap 
peals  to  us  in  vain.77 

Mr.  Gray,  the  man  to  whom  Turner 
made  his  confession  before  dying,  said  : 

"  It  has  been  said  that  he  was  ignorant 
and  cowardly  and  that  his  object  was  to 
murder  and  rob  for  the  purpose  of  obtain 
ing  money  to  make  his  escape.  It  is  no 
torious  that  he  was  never  known  to  have  a 


164  The  Negro  in  the  South 

dollar  in  his  life,  to  swear  an  oath,  or  drink 
a  drop  of  spirits.  As  to  his  ignorance,  he 
certainly  never  had  the  advantages  of  an 
education,  but  he  can  read  and  write,  and 
for  natural  intelligence  and  quickness  of 
apprehension  is  surpassed  by  few  men  I 
have  ever  seen.  As  to  his  being  a  coward, 
his  reason  as  given  for  not  resisting  Mr. 
Phipps,  shows  the  decision  of  his  character. 
When  he  saw  Mr.  Phipps  present  his  gun, 
he  said  he  knew  it  was  impossible  for  him  to 
escape  as  the  woods  were  full  of  men.  He, 
therefore,  thought  it  was  better  for  him  to 
surrender  and  trust  to  fortune  for  his  escape. 
"  He  is  a  complete  fanatic  or  plays  his 
part  most  admirably.  On  other  subjects  he 
possesses  an  uncommon  share  of  intelligence, 
with  a  mind  capable  of  attaining  anything, 
but  warped  and  perverted  by  the  influence 
of  early  impressions.  He  is  below  the  or 
dinary  stature,  though  strong  and  active, 
having  the  true  Negro  face,  every  feature  of 
which  is  strongly  marked. 


Religion  in  the  South  165 

"  I  shall  not  attempt  to  describe  the 
effect  of  his  narrative,  as  told  and  com 
mented  on  by  himself,  in  the  condemned 
hole  of  the  prison ;  the  calm  deliberate 
composure  with  which  he  spoke  of  his  late 
deeds  and  intentions ;  the  expression  of  his 
fiend-like  face  when  excited  by  enthusiasm, 
still  bearing  the  stains  of  the  blood  of  the 
helpless  innocence  about  him,  clothed  with 
rags  and  covered  with  chains,  yet  daring  to 
raise  his  manacled  hand  to  Heaven,  with  a 
spirit  soaring  above  the  attributes  of  man. 
I  looked  on  him  and  the  blood  curdled  in 
my  veins." x 

The  Turner  insurrection  is  so  connected 
with  the  economic  revolution  which  en 
throned  cotton  that  it  marks  an  epoch  in 
the  history  of  the  slave.  A  wave  of  legis 
lation  passed  over  the  South  prohibiting  the 
slaves  from  learning  to  read  and  write,  for 
bidding  Negroes  to  preach,  and  interfering 
with  Negro  religious  meetings. 

1U  The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  8. 


i66  The  Negro  in  the  South 

Virginia  declared,  in  1831,  that  neither 
slaves  nor  free  Negroes  might  preach,  nor 
could  they  attend  religious  service  at  night 
without  permission.  In  North  Carolina 
slaves  and  free  Negroes  were  forbidden  to 
preach,  exhort  or  teach  "  in  any  prayer- 
meeting  or  other  association  for  worship 
where  slaves  of  different  families  are  col 
lected  together "  on  penalty  of  not  more 
than  thirty-nine  lashes.  Maryland  and 
Georgia  had  similar  laws.  The  Mississippi 
law  of  1831  said  :  It  is  "  unlawful  for  any 
slave,  free  Negro,  or  mulatto  to  preach  the 
gospel "  upon  pain  of  receiving  thirty-nine 
lashes  upon  the  naked  back  of  the  pre 
sumptuous  preacher.  If  a  Negro  received 
written  permission  from  his  master  he  might 
preach  to  the  Negroes  in  his  immediate 
neighborhood,  providing  six  respectable 
white  men,  owners  of  slaves,  were  present. 
In  Alabama  the  law  of  1832  prohibited  the 
assembling  of  more  than  five  male  slaves  at 
any  place  off  the  plantation  to  which  they 


Religion  in  the  South  167 

belonged,  but  nothing  in  the  act  was  to  be 
considered  as  forbidding  attendance  at  places 
of  public  worship  held  by  white  persons. 
No  slave  or  free  person  of  color  was  per 
mitted  to  "  preach,  exhort,  or  harangue 
any  slave  or  slaves,  or  free  persons  of  color, 
except  in  the  presence  of  five  respectable 
slaveholders,  or  unless  the  person  preaching 
was  licensed  by  some  regular  body  of  pro 
fessing  Christians  in  the  neighborhood,  to 
whose  society  or  church  the  Negroes  ad 
dressed  properly  belonged." 

In  the  District  of  Columbia  the  free 
Negroes  began  to  leave  white  churches  in 
1831  and  to  assemble  in  their  own. 

Thus  it  was  that  through  the  fear  of 
insurrection,  the  economic  press  of  the  new 
slavery  that  was  arising,  and  the  new  sig 
nificance  of  slavery  in  the  economics  of  the 
South,  the  strife  for  spiritual  brotherhood 
was  given  up.  Slavery  became  distinctly 
a  matter  of  race  and  not  of  status.  Long 
years  before,  the  white  servants  had  been 


168  The  Negro  in  the  South 

freed  and  only  black  servants  were  left ; 
now  social  condition  came  to  be  not  simply 
a  matter  of  slavery  but-  a  matter  of  belong 
ing  to  the  black  race,  so  that  even  the  free 
Negroes  began  to  be  disfranchised  and  put 
into  the  caste  system  (see  Note  23). 

A  new  adjustment  of  ethics  and  religion 
had  to  be  made  to  meet  this  new  situation, 
and  in  the  adjustment  no  matter  what 
might  be  said  or  thought,  the  Negro  and 
slavery  had  to  be  the  central  thing. 

In  the  adjustment  of  religion  and  ethics 
that  was  made  for  the  new  slavery,  under 
the  cotton  kingdom,  there  was  in  the  first 
place  a  distinct  denial  of  human  brother 
hood.  These  black  men  were  not  men  in 
the  sense  that  white  men  were  men.  They 
were  different — different  in  kind,  different 
in  origin ;  they  had  different  diseases 
(see  Note  24) ;  they  had  different  feelings  ; 
they  were  not  to  be  treated  the  same  ;  they 
were  not  looked  upon  as  the  same ;  they 
were  altogether  apart  and,  while  perhaps 


Religion  in  the  South  169 

they  had  certain  low  sensibilities  and 
aspirations,  yet  so  far  as  this  world  is  con 
cerned,  there  could  be  with  them  neither 
human  nor  spiritual  brotherhood. 

The  only  status  that  they  could  possibly 
occupy  was  the  status  of  slaves.  They  could 
not  get  along  as  freemen  ;  they  could  not 
work  as  freemen ;  it  was  utterly  unthink 
able  that  people  should  live  with  them  free. 
This  was  the  philosophy  that  was  worked 
out  gradually,  with  exceptions  here  and 
there,  and  that  was  thought  through, 
written  on,  preached  from  the  pulpits  and 
taught  in  the  homes,  until  people  in  the 
South  believed  it  as  they  believed  the  rising 
and  the  setting  of  the  sun. 

As  this  became  more  and  more  the  ortho 
dox  ethical  opinion,  heretics  appeared  in  the 
land  as  they  always  do.  But  intolerance  and 
anathema  met  them.  In  community  after 
community  there  was  a  demand  for  ortho 
doxy  on  this  one  burning  question  of  the 
economic  and  religious  South,  and  the 


170  The  Negro  in  the  South 

heretics  were  driven  out.  The  Quakers 
left  North  Carolina,  the  abolitionists  either 
left  Virginia  or  ceased  to  talk,  and  through 
out  the  South  those  people  who  dared  to 
think  otherwise  were  left  silent  or  dead 
(see  Note  25). 

So  long  as  slavery  was  an  economic  suc 
cess  this  orthodoxy  was  all  powerful ;  when 
signs  of  economic  distress  appeared  it  be 
came  intolerant  and  aggressive.  A  great 
moral  battle  was  impending  in  the  South, 
but  political  turmoil  and  a  development  of 
northern  thought  so  rapid  as  to  be  unintel 
ligible  in  the  South  stopped  this  develop 
ment  forcibly.  War  came  and  the  hatred 
and  moral  bluntness  incident  to  war,  and 
men  crystallized  in  their  old  thought. 

The  matter  now  could  no  longer  be  ar 
gued  and  thought  out,  it  became  a  matter 
of  tradition,  of  faith,  of  family  and  personal 
honor.  There  grew  up  therefore  after  the 
war  a  new  predicament ;  a  new-old  paradox. 
Upon  the  whites  hung  the  curse  of  the 


Religion  in  the  South  171 

past ;  because  they  had  not  settled  their  la 
bor  problem  then,  they  must  settle  the 
problem  now  in  the  face  of  upheaval  and 
handicapped  by  the  natural  advance  of  the 
world. 

So  after  the  war  and  even  to  this  day, 
the  religious  and  ethical  life  of  the  South 
bows  beneath  this  burden.  Shrinking  from 
facing  the  burning  ethical  questions  that 
front  it  unrelentingly,  the  Southern  Church 
clings  all  the  more  closely  to  the  letter  of  a 
worn  out  orthodoxy,  while  its  inner  truer 
soul  crouches  before  and  fears  to  answer  the 
problem  of  eight  million  black  neighbors. 
It  therefore  assiduously  "  preaches  Christ 
crucified,"  in  prayer  meeting  patois,  and 
crucifies  "  Niggers  "  in  unrelenting  daily 
life. 

While  the  Church  in  the  North,  all  too 
slowly  but  surely  is  struggling  up  from  the 
ashes  of  a  childish  faith  in  myth  and 
miracle,  and  beginning  to  preach  a  living 
gospel  of  civic  virtue,  peace  and  good  will 


172  The  Negro  in  the  South 

and  a  crusade  against  lying,  stealing  and 
snobbery,  the  Southern  church  for  the  most 
part  is  still  murmuring  of  modes  of  "  bap 
tism,"  "  infant  damnation  "  and  the  "  di 
vine  plan  of  creation." 

Thus  the  post-bellum  ethical  paradox  of 
the  South  is  far  more  puzzling  than  the 
economic  paradox.  To  be  sure  there  is 
leaven  in  the  lump.  There  are  brave 
voices  here  and  there,  but  they  are  easily 
drowned  by  social  tyranny  in  the  South 
and  by  indifference  and  sensationalism  in 
the  North  (see  Note  26). 

First  of  all  the  result  of  the  war  was  the 
complete  expulsion  of  Negroes  from  white 
churches.  Little  has  been  said  of  this,  but 
perhaps  it  was  in  itself  the  most  singular 
and  tremendous  result  of  slavery.  The 
Methodist  Church  South  simply  set  its  Ne 
gro  members  bodily  out  of  doors.  They  did 
it  with  some  consideration  for  their  feelings, 
with  as  much  kindliness  as  crass  unkindli- 
ness  can  show,  but  they  virtually  said  to  all 


Religion  in  the  South  173 

their  black  members — to  the  black  mam 
mies  whom  they  have  almost  fulsomely 
praised  and  whom  they  remember  in  such 
astonishing  numbers  to-day,  to  the  polite 
and  deferential  old  servant,  to  whose  char 
acter  they  build  monuments — they  said  to 
them  :  "  You  cannot  worship  God  with  us." 
There  grew  up,  therefore,  the  Colored  Meth 
odist  Episcopal  Church. 

Flagrantly  unchristian  as  this  course  was, 
it  was  still  in  some  ways  better  than  the  ab 
solute  withdrawal  of  church  fellowship  on 
the  part  of  the  Baptists,  or  the  policy  of 
Episcopalians,  which  was  simply  that  of 
studied  neglect  and  discouragement  which 
froze,  harried,  and  well  nigh  invited  the 
black  communicants  to  withdraw. 

From  the  North  now  came  those  Negro 
church  bodies  born  of  color  discrimination 
in  Philadelphia  and  New  York  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  thus  a  Christian 
ity  absolutely  divided  along  the  color  line 
arose.  There  ma^  be  in  the  South  a  black 


174  The  Negro  in  the  South 

man  belonging  to  a  white  church  to-day  but 
if  so,  he  must  be  very  old  and  very  feeble. 
This  anomaly — this  utter  denial  of  the  very 
first  principles  of  the  ethics  of  Jesus  Christ 
— is  to-day  so  deep  seated  and  unquestion 
able  a  principle  of  Southern  Christianity 
that  its  essential  heathenism  is  scarcely 
thought  of,  and  every  revival  of  religion  in 
this  section  banks  its  spiritual  riches  solidly 
and  unmovedly  against  the  color  line, 
without  conscious  question. 

Among  the  Negroes  the  results  are  equally 
unhappy.  They  needed  ethical  leadership, 
spiritual  guidance,  and  religious  instruction. 
If  the  Negroes  of  the  South  are  to  any  de 
gree  immoral,  sexually  unchaste,  crimi 
nally  inclined,  and  religiously  ignorant, 
what  right  has  the  Christian  South  even  to 
whisper  reproach  or  accusation  ?  How  of 
ten  have  they  raised  a  finger  to  assume 
spiritual  or  religious  guardianship  over 
those  victims  of  their  past  system  of  eco 
nomic  and  social  life  ? 


Religion  in  the  South  175 

Left  thus  unguided  the  Negroes,  with 
some  help  from  such  Northern  white 
churches  as  dared,  began  their  own  religious 
upbuilding  (see  Note  27).  They  faced  tre 
mendous  difficulties — lack  of  ministers, 
money,  and  experience.  Their  churches 
could  not  be  simply  centres  of  religious  life 
— because  in  the  poverty  of  their  organized 
efforts  all  united  striving  tended  to  centre 
in  this  one  social  organ.  The  Negro 
Church  consequently  became  a.  great  social 
institution  with  some  ethical  ideas  but  with 
those  ethical  ideas  warped  and  changed 
and  perverted  by  the  whole  history  of  the 
past ;  with  memories,  traditions,  and  rites 
of  heathen  worship,  of  intense  emotion 
alism,  trance,  and  weird  singing. 

And  above  all,  there  brooded  over 
and  in  the  church  the  sense  of  all  their 
grievances.  Whatsoever  their  own  short 
comings  might  be,  at  least  they  knew  that 
they  were  not  guilty  of  hypocrisy  ;  they 
did  not  cry  "  Whosoever  will  "  and  then 


The  Negro  in  the  South 

brazenly  ostracize  half  the  world.  They 
knew  that  they  opened  their  doors  and 
hearts  wide  to  all  people  that  really  wanted 
to  come  in  and  they  looked  upon  the  white 
churches  not  as  examples  but  with  a  sort  of 
silent  contempt  and  a  real  inner  question 
ing  of  the  genuineness  of  their  Chris 
tianity. 

On  the  other  hand,  so  far  as  the  white 
post-bellum  Christian  church  is  concerned, 
I  can  conceive  no  more  pitiable  paradox 
than  that  of  the  young  white  Christian  in 
the  South  to-day  who  really  believes  in  the 
ethics  of  Jesus  Christ.  What  can  he  think 
when  he  hangs  upon  his  church  doors  the 
sign  that  I  have  often  seen,  "  All  are  wel 
come."  He  knows  that  half  the  population 
of  his  city  would  not  dare  to  go  inside  that 
church.  Or  if  there  was  any  fellowship  be 
tween  Christians,  white  and  black,  it  would 
be  after  the  manner  explained  by  a  white 
Mississippi  clergyman  in  all  seriousness  : 
"  The  whites  and  Negroes  understand  each 


Religion  in  the  South  177 

other  here  perfectly,  sir,  perfectly  ;  if  they 
come  to  my  church  they  take  a  seat  in  the 
gallery.  If  I  go  to  theirs,  they  invite  me 
to  the  front  pew  or  the  platform." 

Once  in  Atlanta  a  great  revival  was  go 
ing  on  in.  a  prominent  white  church.  The 
people  were  at  fever  heat,  the  minister  was 
preaching  and  calling  "  Come  to  Jesus." 
Up  the  aisle  tottered  an  old  black  man — he 
was  an  outcast,  he  had  wandered  in  there 
aimlessly  off  the  streets,  dimly  he  had  com 
prehended  this  call  and  he  came  tottering 
and  swaying  up  the  aisle.  What  was  the 
result?  It  broke  up  the  revival.  There 
was  no  disturbance ;  he  was  gently  led  out, 
but  that  sudden  appearance  of  a  black  face 
spoiled  the  whole  spirit  of  the  thing  and 
the  revival  was  at  an  end. 

Who  can  doubt  that  if  Christ  came  to 
Georgia  to-day  one  of  His  first  deeds  would 
be  to  sit  down  and  take  supper  with  black 
men,  and  who  can  doubt  the  outcome  if  He 
did? 


178  The  Negro  in  the  South 

It  is  this  tremendous  paradox  of  a  Chris 
tianity  that  theoretically  opens  the  church 
to  all  men  and  yet  closes  it  forcibly  and  in 
sultingly  in  the  face  of  black  men  and  that 
does  this  not  simply  in  the  visible  church 
but  even  more  harshly  in  the  spiritual  fel 
lowship  of  human  souls — it  is  this  that 
makes  the  ethical  and  religious  problem  in 
the  South  to-day  of  such  tremendous  im 
portance,  arid  that  gives  rise  to  the  one 
thing  which  it  seems  to  me  is  the  most  diffi 
cult  in  the  Southern  situation  and  that  is, 
the  tendency  to  deny  the  truth,  the  tend 
ency  to  lie  when  the  real  situation  comes 
up  because  the  truth  is  too  hard  to  face. 
This  lying  about  the  situation  of  the  South 
has  not  been  simply  a  political  subterfuge 
against  the  dangers  of  ignorance,  but  is  a 
sort  of  gasping  inner  revolt  against  ac 
knowledging  the  real  truth  of  the  ethical 
conviction  which  every  true  Southerner 
must  feel,  namely  :  that  the  South  is  eter 
nally  and  fundamentally  wrong  on  the 


Religion  in  the  South  179 

plain  straight  question  of  the  equality  of 
souls  before  God — of  the  inalienable  rights 
of  all  men. 

Here  are  men — they  are  aspiring,  they 
are  struggling  piteously  forward,  they  have 
frequent  instances  of  ability,  there  is  no 
doubt  as  to  the  tremendous  strides  which 
certain  classes  of  Negroes  have  made — how 
shall  they  be  treated?  That  they  should 
be  treated  as  men,  of  course,  the  best  class 
of  Southerners  know  and  sometimes  ac 
knowledge.  And  yet  they  believe,  and  be 
lieve  with  fierce  conviction,  that  it  is  im 
possible  to  treat  Negroes  as  men,  and  still 
live  with  them.  Right  there  is  the  paradox 
which  they  face  daily  and  which  is  daily 
stamping  hypocrisy  upon  their  religion  and 
upon  their  land. 

Their  irresistible  impulse  in  this  awful 
dilemma  is  to  point  to  and  emphasize  the 
Negro's  degradation,  even  though  they 
know  that  it  is  not  the  degraded  Negro 
whom  they  most  fear,  ostracize,  and  fight  to 


180  The  Negro  in  the  South 

keep  down,  but  rather  the  rising,  ambitious 
Negro. 

If  my  own  city  of  Atlanta  had  offered  it 
to-day  the  choice  between  500  Negro  col 
lege  graduates — forceful,  busy,  ambitious 
men  of  property  and  self-respect,  and  500 
black  cringing  vagrants  and  criminals  ,  the 
popular  vote  in  favor  of  the  criminals 
would  be  simply  overwhelming.  Why? 
because  they  want  Negro  crime  ?  No,  not 
that  they  fear  Negro  crime  less,  but  that 
they  fear  Negro  ambition  and  success  more. 
They  can  deal  with  crime  by  chain-gang 
and  lynch  law,  or  at  least  they  think  they 
can,  but  the  South  can  conceive  neither 
machinery  nor  place  for  the  educated,  self- 
reliant,  self-assertive  black  man. 

Are  a  people  pushed  to  such  moral  ex 
tremities,  the  ones  whose  level-headed,  un 
biased  statements  of  fact  concerning  the 
Negro  can  be  relied  upon  ?  Do  they  really 
know  the  Negro?  Can  the  nation  expect 


Religion  in  the  South  181 

of  them  the  poise  and  patience  necessary 
for  the  settling  of  a  great  social  problem  ? 

Not  only  is  there  then  this  initial  false 
ness  when  the  South  excuses  its  ethical 
paradox  by  pointing  to  the  low  condition  of 
the  Negro  masses,  but  there  is  also  a  strange 
blindness  in  failing  to  see  that  every  pound 
of  evidence  to  prove  the  present  degrada 
tion  of  black  men  but  adds  to  the  crushing 
weight  of  indictment  against  their  past 
treatment  of  this  race. 

A  race  is  not  made  in  a  single  generation. 
If  they  accuse  Negro  women  of  lewdness 
and  Negro  men  of  monstrous  crime,  what 
are  they  doing  but  advertising  to  the  world 
the  shameless  lewdness  of  those  Southern 
men  who  brought  millions  of  mulattoes 
into  the  world,  and  whose  deeds  through 
out  the  South  and  particularly  in  Virginia, 
the  mother  of  slavery,  have  left  but  few 
prominent  families  whose  blood  does  not 
to-day  course  in  black  veins  ?  Suppose  to- 


182  The  Negro  in  the  South 

day  Negroes  do  steal ;  who  was  it  that  for 
centuries  made  stealing  a  virtue  by  stealing 
their  labor  ?  Have  not  laziness  and  list- 
lessness  always  been  the  followers  of 
slavery  ?  If  these  ten  millions  are  ignorant 
by  whose  past  law  and  mandate  and  present 
practice  is  this  true  ? 

The  truth  then  cannot  be  controverted. 
The  present  condition  of  the  Negro  in 
America  is  better  than  the  history  of  slavery 
proves  we  might  reasonably  expect.  With 
the  help  of  his  friends,  North  and  South, 
and  despite  the  bitter  opposition  of  his  foes, 
South  and  North,  he  has  bought  twelve 
million  acres  of  land,  swept  away  two- 
thirds  of  his  illiteracy,  organized  his 
church,  and  found  leadership  and  articu 
late  voice.  Yet  despite  this  the  South, 
Christian  and  unchristian,  with  only  here 
and  there  an  exception,  still  stands  like  a 
rock  wall  and  says  :  Negroes  are  not  men 
and  must  not  be  treated  as  men. 

When  now  the  world  faces  such  an  abso- 


Religion  in  the  South  183 

lute    ethical    contradiction,    the    truth    is 
nearer  than  it  seems. 

It  stands  to-day  perfectly  clear  and  plain 
despite  all  sophistication  and  false  assump 
tion  :  If  the  contention  of  the  South  is 
true — that  Negroes  cannot  by  reason  of 
hereditary  inferiority  take  their  places  in 
modern  civilization  beside  white  men,  then 
the  South  owes  it  to  the  world  and  to  its 
better  self  to  give  the  Negro  every  chance 
to  prove  this.  To  make  the  assertion  dog 
matically  and  then  resort  to  all  means 
which  retard  and  restrict  Negro  develop 
ment  is  not  simply  to  stand  convicted  of 
insincerity  before  the  civilized  world,  but, 
far  worse  than  that,  it  is  to  make  a  nation 
of  naturally  generous,  honest  people  to  sit 
humiliated  before  their  own  consciences. 

I  believe  that  a  straightforward,  honor 
able  treatment  of  black  men  according  to 
their  desert  and  achievement,  will  soon 
settle  the  Negro  problem.  If  the  South  is 
right  few  will  rise  to  a  plane  that  will  make 


184  The  Negro  in  the  South 

their  social  reception  a  matter  worth  con 
sideration  ;  few  will  gain  the  sobriety  and 
industry  which  will  deserve  the  ballot ; 
and  few  will  achieve  such  solid  moral 
character  as  will  give  them  welcome  to  the 
fellowship  of  the  church.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  Negroes  with  the  door  of  opportunity 
thrown  wide  do  become  men  of  industry 
and  achievement,  of  moral  strength  and 
even  genius,  then  such  rise  will  silence  the 
South  with  an  eternal  silence. 

The  nation  that  enslaved  the  Negro  owes 
him  this  trial;  the  section  that  doggedly 
and  unreasonably  kept  him  in  slavery  owes 
him  at  least  this  chance ;  and  the  church 
which  professes  to  follow  Jesus  Christ  and 
does  not  insist  on  this  elemental  act  of 
justice  merits  the  denial  of  the  Master — 
"  I  never  knew  you" 

This,  then,  is  the  history  of  those  mighty 
moral  battles  in  the  South  which  have 
given  us  the  Negro  problem.  And  the  last 
great  battle  is  not  a  battle  of  South  or  East, 


Religion  in  the  South  185 

of  black  or  white,  but  of  all  of  us.  The 
path  to  racial  peace  is  straight  but  narrow 
— its  following  to-day  means  tremendous 
fight  against  inertia,  prejudice,  and  in 
trenched  snobbery.  But  it  is  the  duty  of 
men,  it  is  a  duty  of  the  church,  to  face  the 
problem.  Not  only  is  it  their  duty  to  face 
it — they  must  face  it,  it  is  impossible  not  to, 
the  very  attempt  to  ignore  it  is  assuming  an 
attitude.  It  is  a  problem  not  simply  of 
political  expediency,  of  economic  success, 
but  a  problem  above  all  of  religious  and 
social  life ;  and  it  carries  with  it  not  simply 
a  demand  for  its  own  solution,  but  beneath 
it  lies  the  whole  question  of  the  real  intent 
of  our  civilization  :  Is  the  civilization  of 
the  United  States  Christian  ? 

It  is  a  matter  of  grave  consideration  what 
answer  we  ought  to  give  to  that  question. 
The  precepts  of  Jesus  Christ  cannot  but 
mean  that  Christianity  consists  of  an  at 
titude  of  humility,  of  a  desire  for  peace,  of 
a  disposition  to  treat  our  brothers  as  we 


i86  The  Negro  in  the  South 

would  have  our  brothers  treat  us,  of  mercy 
and  charity  toward  our  fellow  men,  of  will 
ingness  to  suffer  persecution  for  right  ideals 
and  in  general  of  love  not  only  toward  our 
friends  but  even  toward  our  enemies. 

Judged  by  this,  it  is  absurd  to  call  the 
practical  religion  of  this  nation  Christian. 
We  are  not  humble,  we  are  impudently 
proud  ;  we  are  not  merciful,  we  are  un 
merciful  toward  friend  and  foe ;  we  are 
not  peaceful  nor  peacefully  inclined  as  our 
armies  and  battle-ships  declare ;  we  do  not 
want  to  be  martyrs,  we  would  much  rather 
be  thieves  and  liars  so  long  as  we  can  be 
rich  ;  we  do  not  seek  continuously,  and 
prayerfully  inculcate,  love  and  justice  for 
our  fellow  men,  but  on  the  contrary  the 
treatment  of  the  poor,  the  unfortunate,  and 
the  black  within  our  borders  is  almost  a 
national  crime. 

The  problem  that  lies  before  Christians  is 
tremendous  (see  Note  28),  and  the  answer 
must  begin  not  by  a  slurring  over  of  the 


Religion  in  the  South  187 

one  problem  where  these  different  tests  of 
Christianity  are  most  flagrantly  disre 
garded,  but  it  must  begin  by  a  girding  of 
ourselves  and  a  determination  to  see  that 
justice  is  done  in  this  country  to  the 
humblest  and  blackest  as  well  as  to  the 
greatest  and  whitest  of  our  citizens. 

Now  a  word  especially  about  the  Epis 
copal  church,  whose  position  toward  its 
Negro  communicants  is  peculiar.  I  ap 
preciate  this  position  and  speak  of  it  spe 
cifically  because  I  am  one  of  those  com 
municants.  For  four  generations  my  family 
has  belonged  to  this  church  and  I  belong  to 
it,  not  by  personal  choice,  not  because  I  feel 
myself  welcome  within  its  portals,  but 
simply  because  I  refuse  to  be  read  outside 
of  a  church  which  is  mine  by  inheritance 
and  the  service  of  my  fathers.  When  the 
Episcopal  church  comes,  as  it  does  come  to 
day,  to  the  Parting  of  the  Ways,  to  the 
question  as  to  whether  its  record  in  the 
future  is  going  to  be,  on  the  Negro  problem, 


i88  The  Negro  in  the  South 

as  disgraceful  as  it  has  been  in  the  past,  I 
feel  like  appealing  to  all  who  are  members 
of  that  church  to  remember  that  after  all 
it  is  a  church  of  Jesus  Christ.  Your  creed 
and  your  duty  enjoin  upon  you  one,  and 
only  one,  course  of  procedure. 

In  the  real  Christian  church  there  is 
neither  black  nor  white,  rich  nor  poor,  bar 
barian,  Scythian,  bond  nor  free,  but  all 
stand  equal  before  the  face  of  the  Master. 
If  you  find  that  you  cannot  treat  your  Ne 
gro  members  as  fellow  Christians  then  do 
not  deceive  yourselves  into  thinking  that 
the  differences  that  you  make  or  are  going 
to  make  in  their  treatment  are  made  for 
their  good  or  for  the  service  of  the  world  ; 
do  not  entice  them  to  ask  for  a  separation 
which  your  unchristian  conduct  forces  them 
to  prefer ;  do  not  pretend  that  the  distinc 
tions  which  you  make  toward  them  are  dis 
tinctions  which  are  made  for  the  larger  good 
of  men,  but  simply  confess  in  humility  and 
self-abasement  that  you  are  not  able  to  live 


Religion  in  the  South  189 

up  to  your  Christian  vows ;  that  you  cannot 
treat  these  men  as  brothers  and  therefore 
you  are  going  to  set  them  aside  and  let  them 
go  their  half-tended  way. 

I  should  be  sorry,  I  should  be  grieved 
more  than  I  can  say,  to  see  that  which  hap 
pened  in  the  Southern  Methodist  Church 
and  that  which  is  practically  happening  in 
the  Presbyterian  Church,  and  that  which 
will  come  in  other  sects — namely,  a  segre 
gation  of  Negro  Christians,  come  to  be  true 
among  Episcopalians.  It  would  be  a  sign 
of  Christian  disunity  far  more  distressing 
than  sectarianism.  I  should  therefore  de 
plore  it ;  and  yet  I  am  also  free  to  say  that 
unless  this  church  is  prepared  to  treat  its 
Negro  members  with  exactly  the  same  con 
sideration  that  other  members  receive,  with 
the  same  brotherhood  and  fellowship,  the 
same  encouragement  to  aspiration,  the  same 
privileges,  similarly  trained  priests  and  sim 
ilar  preferment  for  them,  then  I  should  a 
great  deal  rather  see  them  set  aside  than  to 


190  The  Negro  in  the  South 

see  a  continuation  of  present  injustice.  All 
I  ask  is  that  when  you  do  this  you  do  it 
with  an  open  and  honest  statement  of  the 
real  reasons  and  not  with  statements  veiled 
by  any  hypocritical  excuses. 

I  am  therefore  above  all  desirous  that  the 
younger  men  and  women  who  are  to-day 
taking  up  the  leadership  of  this  great  group 
of  men,  who  wish  the  world  better  and 
work  toward  that  end,  should  begin  to  see 
the  real  significance  of  this  step  and  of  the 
great  problem  behind  it.  It  is  not  a  prob 
lem  simply  of  the  South,  not  a  problem 
simply  of  this  country,  it  is  a  problem  of 
the  world. 

As  I  have  said  elsewhere :  "  Most  men 
are  colored.  A  belief  in  humanity  is  above 
all  a  belief  in  colored  men."  If  you  cannot 
get  on  with  colored  men  in  America  you 
cannot  get  on  with  the  modern  world  ;  and 
if  you  cannot  work  with  the  humanity  of 
this  world  how  shall  your  souls  ever  tune 


Religion  in  the  South  191 

with  the  myriad  sided  souls  of  worlds  to 
come? 

It  may  be  that  the  price  of  the  black 
man's  survival  in  America  and  in  the 
modern  world,  will  be  a  long  and  shameful 
night  of  subjection  to  caste  and  segregation. 
If  so,  he  will  pay  it,  doggedly,  silently,  un 
falteringly,  for  the  sake  of  human  liberty 
and  the  souls  of  his  children's  children. 
But  as  he  stoops  he  will  remember  the  in 
dignation  of  that  Jesus  who  cried,  yonder 
behind  heaving  seas  and  years  :  "  Woe  unto 
you  scribes  and  Pharisees,  hypocrites,  that 
strain  out  a  gnat  and  swallow  a  camel, "- 
as  if  God  cared  a  whit  whether  His  Sons  are 
born  of  maid,  wife  or  widow  so  long  as  His 
church  sits  deaf  to  His  own  calling  : 

"  Ho  !  every  one  that  thirsteth,  come  ye  to 
the  waters  and  he  that  hath  no  money  ; 
come  ye,  buy  and  eat ;  yea,  come,  buy  wine 
and  milk  without  money  and  without 
price  1  " 


NOTES 
TO  CHAPTEES  III  AKD  IV 


NOTES  TO  CH  APTEE  III 

NOTE  1 

"THE  history  of  slavery  and  the  slave 
trade  after  1820  must  be  read  in  the  light 
of  the  industrial  revolution  through  which 
the  civilized  world  passed  in  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Between  the 
years  1775  and  1825  occurred  economic 
events  and  changes  of  the  highest  impor 
tance  and  widest  influence.  Though  all 
branches  of  the  industry  felt  the  impulse  of 
this  new  industrial  life,  yet,  if  we  consider 
single  industries,  cotton  manufacture  has, 
during  the  nineteenth  century,  made  the 
most  magnificent  and  gigantic  advances." 

This  fact  is  easily  explained  by  the  re 
markable  series  of  inventions  that  revolu 
tionized  this  industry  between  1738  and 
1830,  including  Arkwright's,  Watt's,  Comp- 
ton's,  and  Cartwright's  epoch  making  con- 


196  The  Negro  in  the  South 

tri  vances.  The  effect  which  these  inventions 
had  on  the  manufacture  of  cotton  goods  is 
best  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  in  England, 
the  chief  cotton  market  of  the  world,  the 
consumption  of  raw  cotton  rose  steadily 
from  13,000  bales  in  1781,  to  572,000  in 
1820,  to  871,000  in  1830,  and  to  3,366,000 
in  1860.  Very  early,  therefore,  came  the 
query  whence  the  supply  of  raw  cotton  was 
to  come.  Tentative  experiments  on  the 
rich,  broad  fields  of  the  Southern  United 
States,  together  with  the  indispensable  in 
vention  of  Whitney's  cotton  gin,  soon  an 
swered  this  question.  A  new  economic 
future  was  opened  up  to  this  land,  and 
immediately  the  whole  South  began  to  ex 
tend  its  cotton  culture,  and  more  and  more 
to  throw  its  whole  energy  into  this  one 
staple. 

Here  it  was  that  the  fatal  mistake  of 
compromising  with  slavery  in  the  beginning, 
and  of  the  policy  of  laissez-faire  pursued 
thereafter,  became  painfully  manifest ;  for, 


Notes  197 

instead  now  of  a  healthy,  normal,  economic 
development  along  proper  industrial  lines, 
we  have  the  abnormal  and  fatal  rise  of  a 
slave-labor,  large-farming  system,  which, 
before  it  was  realized,  had  so  intertwined 
itself  with  and  braced  itself  upon  the  eco 
nomic  forces  of  an  industrial  age,  that  a 
vast  and  terrible  civil  war  was  necessary  to 
displace  it.  The  tendencies  to  a  patriarchal 
serfdom,  recognized  in  the  age  of  Washing 
ton  and  Jefferson,  began  slowly  but  surely 
to  disappear ;  and  in  the  second  quarter  of 
the  century  Southern  slavery  was  irresist 
ibly  changing  from  a  family  institution  to 
an  industrial  system. 

DuBois,    "  Suppression     of    the     Slave 
Trade,"  p.  151. 

A  list  of  the  chief  in  ventions  most  graphic 
ally  illustrates  the  above  :  — 

1738,  John  Jay,  fly  shuttle. 

John  Wyatt,  spinning  by  rollers. 

1748,  Lewis  Paul,  carding  machine. 

1760,  Robert  Kay,  drop  box. 


198  The  Negro  in  the  South 

1769,  Richard     Arkwright,    water- frame 

and  throstle. 
James  Watt,  steam-engine. 

1772,  James  Lees,  improvements  on  card- 
ing-machine. 

1775,  Richard  Arkwright,  series  of  com 
binations. 

1779,  Samuel  Compton,  mule. 

1785,  Edmuftd  Cartwright,  power-loom. 

1803-4,  Radcliffe  and  Johnson,  dressing- 
machine. 

1817,  Roberts,  fly-frame. 

1818,  William  Eaton,  self-acting  frame. 

1825-30,  Roberts,  improvements  on  mule. 

Cf.  Baines,  "  History  of  the  Cotton  Manu 
factures,"  pp.  116-23;  "Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,"  9th  ed.,  article  "  Cotton." 

NOTE  2 

In  1832,  Alabama  declared  that  "any 
person  or  persons  who  shall  attempt  to 
teach  any  free  person  of  color  or  slave  to 
spell,  read,  or  write,  shall,  upon  conviction 


Notes  199 

thereof  by  indictment,  be  fined  in  a  sum 
not  less  than  $250,  nor  more  than  $500." 

Georgia,  in  1770,  fined  any  person  who 
taught  a  slave  to  read  or  write  twenty 
pounds.  In  1829  the  State  enacted  : 

"  If  any  slave,  Negro  or  free  person  of 
color,  or  any  white  person,  shall  teach 
any  other  slave,  Negro  or  free  person  of 
color  to  read  or  write,  either  written  or 
printed  characters,  the  same  free  person  of 
color  or  slave  shall  be  punished  by  fine  and 
whipping,  or  fine  or  whipping,  at  the  dis 
cretion  of  the  court ;  and  if  a  white  person 
so  offend,  he,  she  or  they  shall  be  punished 
with  a  fine  not  exceeding  $500  and  im 
prisonment  in  the  common  jail  at  the  dis 
cretion  of  the  court." 

In  1833  this  law  was  put  into  the  penal 
code,  with  additional  penalties  for  using 
slaves  in  printing  offices  to  set  type.  These 
laws  were  violated  sometimes  by  individual 
masters,  and  clandestine  schools  were  opened 
for  Negroes  in  some  of  the  cities  before  the 


200  The  Negro  in  the  South 

war.  In  1850  and  thereafter  there  was 
some  agitation  to  repeal  these  laws  and  a 
bill  to  that  effect  failed  in  the  Senate  of 
Georgia  by  two  or  three  votes. 

Louisiana,  in  1830,  declared  that  "  All 
persons  who  shall  teach  or  permit  or  cause 
to  be  taught  any  slave  to  read  or  write  shall 
be  imprisoned  not  less  than  one  month  nor 
more  than  twelve  months." 

Missouri,  in  1847,  passed  an  act  saying 
that  "  No  person  shall  keep  or  teach  any 
school  for  the  instruction  of  Negroes  or 
mulattoes  in  reading  or  writing  in  this 
state." 

North  Carolina  had  schools  supported  by 
free  Negroes  up  until  1835,  when  they  were 
abolished  by  law. 

South  Carolina,  in  1740,  declared  : 
"  Whereas,  the  having  of  slaves  taught  to 
write  or  suffering  them  to  be  employed  in 
writing  may  be  attended  with  inconve 
niences,  be  it  enacted,  that  all  and  every  per 
son  and  persons  whatsoever  who  shall  here- 


Notes  201 

after  teach  or  cause  any  slave  or  slaves  to  be 
taught,  or  shall  use  or  employ  any  slave  as 
a  scribe  in  any  manner  of  writing  whatever, 
hereafter  taught  to  write,  every  such  person 
or  persons  shall  for  every  such  offense  for 
feit  the  sum  of  £100  current  money." 

In  1800  and  1833  the  teaching  of  free 
Negroes  was  restricted  :  "  And  if  any  free 
person  of  color  or  slave  shall  keep  any 
school  or  other  places  of  instruction  for 
teaching  any  slave  or  free  person  of  color  to 
read  or  write,  such  free  person  of  color  or 
slave  shall  be  liable  to  the  same  fine,  im 
prisonment  and  corporal  punishment  as  by 
this  act  are  imposed  and  inflicted  on  free 
persons  of  color  and  slaves  for  teaching 
slaves  to  write."  Other  sections  prohibited 
white  persons  from  teaching  slaves.  Ap 
parently  whites  might  teach  free  Negroes  to 
some  extent. 

Virginia,  in  1819,  forbade  "  all  meetings 
or  assemblages  of  slaves  or  free  Negroes  or 
mulattoes  mixing  and  associating  with  such 


202  The  Negro  in  the  South 

slaves,  ...  at  any  school  or  schools 
for  teaching  them  reading  and  writing, 
either  in  the  day  or  night."  Nevertheless 
free  Negroes  kept  schools  for  themselves 
until  the  Nat  Turner  Insurrection,  when  it 
was  enacted,  1831,  that  "all  meetings  of 
free  Negroes  or  mulattoes  at  any  school- 
house,  church,  meeting-house  or  other  place, 
for  teaching  them  reading  and  writing, 
either  in  the  day  or  night,  under  whatso 
ever  pretext,  shall  be  deemed  and  considered 
an  unlawful  assembly."  This  law  was  care 
fully  enforced. 

In  the  Northern  States  few  actual  prohib 
itory  laws  were  enacted,  but  in  Connecti 
cut,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and 
elsewhere,  mob  violence  frequently  arose 
against  Negro  schools,  and  in  Connecticut 
the  teaching  of  Negroes  was  restricted  as 
follows  in  1833  :  "  No  person  shall  set  up 
or  establish  in  this  state  any  school, 
academy  or  other  literary  institution  for  the 
instruction  or  education  of  colored  persons 


Notes  203 

who  are  not  inhabitants  of  this  State,  or 
harbor  or  board,  for  the  purpose  of  attend 
ing  or  being  taught  or  instructed  in  any 
such  school,  academy  or  literary  institution 
any  colored  person  who  is  not  an  inhabitant 
of  any  town  in  this  State,  without  the  con 
sent,  in  writing,  first  obtained,  of  a  majority 
of  the  civil  authority,  and  also  of  the  select 
men  of  the  town  in  which  each  school, 
academy  or  literary  institution  is  situated." 
This  was  especially  directed  against  the 
famous  Prudence  Crandall  school,  and  was 
repeated  in  1838. 

Ohio  decreed,  in  1829,  that  "  the  attend 
ance  of  black  or  mulatto  persons  be  specific 
ally  prohibited,  but  all  taxes  assessed  upon 
the  property  of  colored  persons  for  school 
purposes  should  be  appropriated  to  their  in 
struction  and  no  other  purpose."  This  pro 
hibition  was  enforced,  but  the  second  clause 
was  a  dead  letter  for  twenty  years.  Cf. 
Atlanta  University  Publications,  No.  6. 


204  The  Negro  in  the  South 

NOTE  3 
Cf.  Cairnes'  "  Slave  Power." 

NOTE  4 

Stephen  A.  Douglas  said  "  that  there  was 
not  the  shadow  of  doubt  that  the  slave- 
trade  had  been  carried  on  quite  extensively 
for  a  long  time  back,  and  that  there  had 
been  more  slaves  imported  into  the  Southern 
States,  during  the  last  year,  than  had  ever 
been  imported  before  in  any  one  year,  even 
when  the  slave-trade  was  legal.  It  was  his 
confident  belief,  that  over  fifteen  thousand 
slaves  had  been  brought  into  this  country 
during  the  past  year  (1859).  He  had  seen, 
with  his  own  eyes,  three  hundred  of  those 
recently-imported,  miserable  beings,  in  a 
slave-pen  in  Vicksburg,  Miss.,  and  also 
large  numbers  at  Memphis,  Tenn."  It  was 
currently  reported  that  depots  for  these 
slaves  existed  in  over  twenty  large  cities 
and  towns  in  the  South,  and  an  interested 
person  boasted  to  a  senator,  about  1860, 


Notes  205 

that  "  twelve  vessels  would  discharge  their 
living  freight  upon  our  shores  within  ninety 
days  from  the  1st  of  June  last,"  and  that 
between  sixty  and  seventy  cargoes  had  been 
successfully  introduced  in  the  last  eighteen 
months.  (Cf.  DuBois  :  "  Slave  Trade,"  ch.  xi.) 

NOTE  5 

Cf.  Olmsted's  "  Journeys  "  and  Helper's 
"  Impending  Crisis." 

NOTE  6 

Has  not  the  time  come  for  characterizing 
war  plainly  and  ceasing  to  envelope  it  in  a 
haze  of  sentimental  lies?  We  have  near 
worshiped  the  Civil  War  for  a  generation, 
when  in  truth  it  was  a  disgrace  to  civili 
zation  and  we  know  it. 

NOTE  7 

Cf.  Elaine  :  "  Twenty  Years  in  Congress  "  ; 
"  American  Political  Science  Review,"  Vol.  1, 
pp.  44-61;  e.g.,  "South  Carolina,  besides 
thus  minutely  regulating  the  labor  of 


206  The  Negro  in  the  South 

Negroes  under  contract,  prohibited  them 
from  practicing  the  '  art,  trade  or  business 
of  an  artisan,  mechanic,  or  shopkeeper/  or 
any  other  trade  or  business  on  their  own 
account  without  paying  an  annual  license 
fee  to  the  district  judge.  And  no  Negro 
could  obtain  a  license  who  had  not  served 
a  term  of  '  apprenticeship '  at  the  trade. 
Tennessee  also  required  licenses  ;  and  Mis 
sissippi  required  Negroes  to  have  written 
evidence  of  their  home  and  employment. 
Mississippi  also  prohibited  the  renting  or 
leasing  of  any  land  to  Negroes,  except  in 
incorporated  towns  and  cities."  Louisiana 
had  perhaps  the  most  outrageous  pro 
visions. 

NOTE  8 

Albion  W.  Tourgee  said  :  "  They  insti 
tuted  a  public  school  system  in  a  region 
where  public  schools  had  been  unknown. 
They  opened  the  ballot-box  and  the  jury- 
box  to  thousands  of  white  men  who  had 
been  debarred  from  them  by  a  lack  of 


Notes  207 

earthly  possessions.  They  introduced  home 
rule  in  the  South.  They  abolished  the 
whipping-post,  the  branding-iron,  the  stocks 
and  other  barbarous  forms  of  punishment 
which  had  up  to  that  time  prevailed.  They 
reduced  capital  felonies  from  about  twenty 
to  two  or  three.  In  an  age  of  extravagance 
they  were  extravagant  in  the  sums  appro 
priated  for  public  works.  In  all  that  time 
no  man's  rights  of  person  were  invaded 
under  the  forms  of  law."  Thomas  E.  Miller, 
a  Negro  member  of  the  late  Constitutional 
Convention  of  South  Carolina,  said  :  "  The 
gentleman  from  Edgefield  (Mr.  Tillman) 
speaks  of  the  piling  of  the  State  debt ;  of 
jobbery  and  peculation  during  the  period 
between  1869  and  1873  in  South  Carolina, 
but  he  has  not  found  voice  eloquent  enough 
nor  pen  exact  enough  to  mention  those  im 
perishable  gifts  bestowed  upon  South  Caro 
lina  between  1873  and  1876  by  Negro  leg 
islators — the  laws  relative  to  finance,  the 
building  of  penal  and  charitable  institu- 


2o8  The  Negro  in  the  South 

tions,  and,  greatest  of  all,  the  establishment 
of  the  public  school  system.  Starting  as 
infants  in  legislation  in  1869,  many  wise 
measures  were  not  thought  of,  many  in 
judicious  acts  were  passed.  But  in  the 
administration  of  affairs  for  the  next  four 
years,  having  learned  by  experience  the  re 
sult  of  bad  acts,  we  immediately  passed 
reformatory  laws  touching  every  depart 
ment  of  state,  county,  municipal  and  town 
governments.  These  enactments  are  to-day 
upon  the  statute  books  of  South  Carolina. 
They  stand  as  living  witnesses  of  the 
Negro's  fitness  to  vote  and  legislate  upon 
the  rights  of  mankind." 

Cf.  Love's  "  Disfranchisement  of  the 
Negro,"  p.  10. 

NOTE  9 

Cf.  "  The  Economic  Future  of  the  Ne 
gro,"  in  papers  and  proceedings  of  the  eight 
eenth  Annual  Meeting,  American  Eco 
nomic  Association,  pp.  219-42. 


Notes  209 

NOTE  10 
See  Alabama  Laws  on  Labor  Contracts. 

NOTE  11 
See  Laws  of  Alabama,  1906-1907. 

NOTE  12 
See  Laws  of  South  Carolina,  1906-1907. 

NOTE  13 

Cf.  Bulletin  Number  8,  12th  United 
States  Census. 

NOTE  14 

This  statement  when  made  was  challenged 
by  a  Virginia  rector.  Let  John  Sharp  Will 
iams,  minority  leader  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  answer  him. 

"It  is  the  physical  presence  of  the  Negro 
which  constitutes  the  Negro  problem  and 
the  race  issue.  It  is  not  the  fact  that  the 
Negro  can  vote  in  the  South,  because,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  cannot  and  does  not. 
The  Negro  problem  would  be  just  as  trouble- 


210  The  Negro  in  the  South 

some  as  it  is  to-day  if  the  fifteenth  amend 
ment  were  repealed.  The  fifteenth  amend 
ment  touches  it  only  on  its  political  or 
voting  side,  where  the  trouble  is  cured 
already  in  the  South.  It  is  true  that  the 
Negro  does  vote  in  Ohio,  Illinois  and  New 
Jersey  and  various  other  places.  But  the 
people  of  those  states  could  to-morrow,  if 
they  wanted  to,  get  rid  of  his  vote,  just  as  we 
have  got  rid  of  it  in  Mississippi.  The  very 
fact  that  they  have  not  done  it  is  proof  of 
the  fact  that  they  do  not  want  to  do  it,  and 
that  very  fact  is  the  death-blow  of  the 
Vardaman  agitation." 

Negroes  are  disfranchised  by  legal  and 
illegal  methods  and  by  unfair  administra 
tion  of  the  law.  The  "  white  "  primary  is 
a  wide-spread  subterfuge :  to  the  democratic 
primary  election  all  white  men  are  admitted 
without  question,  and  no  Negro  under  any 
circumstances.  The  verdict  of  the  primary 
is  then  registered  in  a  farce  "  election."  In 
Atlanta,  e.  g.,  at  the  "election"  700  votes 


Notes  211 

are  cast  in  a  city  of  100,000  !  The  success 
of  the  "  white  "  primary  depends  of  course 
(a)  on  the  illegal  power  of  the  party  chiefs 
to  exclude  any  votes  they  choose  on  any  pre 
text  and  (6)  on  the  absolute  and  unfair  con 
trol  of  election  machinery  and  returns  by 
one  party  and  (c)  on  public  acquiescence  in 
this  travesty  on  popular  government. 

NOTE  15 

The  Atlanta  riot  had  two  distinct  phases  : 
first,  Saturday,  the  killing  of  innocent  and 
surprised  Negroes  by  a  white  mob ;  then  a 
lull  when  blacks  rapidly  armed  themselves  ; 
finally  the  attempt  to  renew  the  assault  by 
a  crowd  mingled  with  county  policemen, 
who  were  repulsed  by  a  fierce  defense  by 
Negroes ;  these  Negroes  were  afterward  ac 
quitted  of  murder  by  a  southern  jury.  The 
number  of  white  and  black  killed  in  that 
encounter  will  never  be  known,  but  it 
stopped  the  riot.  Cf.  "World  To-Day," 
Nov.  1906. 


212  The  Negro  in  the  South 

NOTE  16 

The  executive  officials  of  the  miners  in 
Alabama  consist  of  four  whites  and  four 
Negroes. 

NOTE  17 

Ten  good  references  on  the  economic  his 
tory  of  the  Negro  and  slavery  are  : 

1.  Kemble,    Fanny,    "  A    Journal    of  a 
Residence  on  a  Georgia  Plantation,"  N.  Y., 
1863.     337  pp.  12mo. 

2.  Olmsted,  F.  L,  "  A  Journey  in  the  Sea 
Board  Slave  States,"  N.  Y.,  1856.    723  pp. 
12mo. 

3.  Cairnes,  J.  E.,  "  The  Slave  Power  :  Its 
Character,  Career,  and  Probable  Designs," 
London,   1862.     304  pp,  2d  ed.  N.  Y.  410 
pp. 

4.  United  States  12th  Census,  Bulletin 
No.    8 :  "  Negroes    in    United  States,"    by 
W.  F.  Wilcox  and  W.  E.  B.  DuBois,  Wash., 
1904,  333  pp. 

5.  "  The  Philadelphia  Negro  "  (Publica- 


Notes  213 

tions   of  the  University  of  Pennsylvania) 
520  pp.    Ginn. 

6.  "  The  Suppression  of  the  Slave  Trade  " 
(Harvard    Historical   Monographs,    No.    1) 
335  pp.     Longmans,  1896. 

7.  Atlanta  University  Publications  : 
No.  3,  "  Efforts  for  Social  Betterment/' 

66  pp.  1898. 
No.  4,  "  The  Negro  in  Business/'  77  pp. 

1899. 
No.  7,  "  The  Negro  Artisan/'   192   pp. 

1902. 

8.  Bulletins  of  the  United  States  Depart 
ment  of  Labor. 

Nos.  10,  14,  22,  32,  35,  37,  38,  48. 

9.  United  States  :  Report  of  the  Indus 
trial  Commission  1901-2,  19  vols. 

10.  Proceedings  of  the  American  Eco 
nomic  Association,  1906. 


214  The  Negro  in  the  South 

NOTES  TO  CHAPTEE  IV 

NOTE  18 

See  Atlanta  University  Publications,  No 
8,  Section  4. 

NOTE  19 

"  Baptism  doth  not  alter  the  condition  of 
the  person  as  to  his  bondage  or  freedom,  in 
order  that  diverse  masters  freed  from  this 
doubt  may  more  carefully  endeavor  the 
propagation  of  Christianity/'  (Williams  I, 
139.) 

NOTE  20 

Cf.  Dr.  Albert  Bushnell  Hart,  "  The 
Realities  of  Negro  Suffrage,"  Proceedings  of 
the  American  Political  Science  Association, 
Vol.  II,  1905. 

NOTE  21 

The  Church  of  England  through  the 
"  Society  for  the  Propagation  of  the  Gospel  " 
(incorporated  1701)  sent  several  mission 
aries  who  worked  chiefly  in  the  North. 


Notes  215 

The  history  of  the  society  goes  on  to  say  : 
"  It  is  a  matter  of  commendation  to  the 
clergy  that  they  have  done  thus  much  in 
so  great  and  difficult  a  work.  But,  alas ! 
what  is  the  instruction  of  a  few  hundreds  in 
several  years  with  respect  to  the  many 
thousands  uninstructed,  unconverted,  living, 
dying,  utter  pagans.  It  must  be  confessed 
what  hath  been  done  is  as  nothing  with  re 
gard  to  what  a  true  Christian  would  hope 
to  see  effected."  After  stating  several  diffi 
culties  in  respect  to  the  religious  instruction 
of  the  Negroes,  it  is  said  :  "  But  the  great 
est  obstruction  is  the  masters  themselves  do 
not  consider  enough  the  obligation  which 
lies  upon  them  to  have  their  slaves  in 
structed."  The  work  of  this  society  in 
America  ceased  in  1783.  The  Methodists 
report  the  following  members  : 

1786  ....  1,890 

1790  ...  11,682 

1791  ....  12,884 
1796  ....  12,215 


216  The  Negro  in  the  South 

Nearly  all  were  in  the  North  and  the  bor 
der  states.  Georgia  had  only  148.  The 
Baptists  had  18,000  Negro  members  in  1793. 
As  to  the  Episcopalians,  the  single  state  of 
Virginia  where  more  was  done  than  else 
where  will  illustrate  the  result : 

"  The  Church  Commission  for  Work 
among  the  Colored  People  at  a  late  meeting 
decided  to  request  the  various  rectors  of 
parishes  throughout  the  South  to  institute 
Sunday-schools  and  special  services  for  the 
colored  population  '  such  as  were  frequently 
found  in  the  South  before  the  war/  The 
commission  hope  for  '  real  advance  '  among 
the  colored  people  in  so  doing.  We  do  not 
agree  with  the  commission  with  respect  to 
either  the  wisdom  or  the  efficiency  of  the 
plan  suggested.  In  the  first  place,  this  '  be 
fore  the  war '  plan  was  a  complete  failure  so 
far  as  church  extension  was  concerned,  in 
the  past  when  white  churchmen  had  com 
plete  bodily  control  of  their  slaves.  .  .  . 

"  The  Journals  of  Virginia  will  verify  the 


Notes  217 

contention,  that  during  the '  before  the  war  ' 
period,  while  the  bishops  and  a  large  num 
ber  of  the  clergy  were  always  interested  in 
the  religious  training  of  the  slaves,  yet  as  a 
matter  of  fact  there  was  general  apathy  and 
indifference  upon  the  part  of  the  laity  with 
respect  to  this  matter. 

"  At  various  intervals  resolutions  were 
presented  in  the  Annual  Conventions  with 
the  avowed  purpose  of  stimulating  an  in 
terest  in  the  religious  welfare  of  the  slaves. 
But  despite  all  these  efforts  the  Journals 
fail  to  record  any  great  achievements  along 
that  line.  ...  So  faithful  had  been  the 
work  under  such  conditions  that  as  late  as 
1879  there  were  less  than  200  colored  com 
municants  reported  in  the  whole  state  of 
Virginia."  (Church  Advocate.) 

NOTE  22 

Charles  C.  Jones  :  "  The  Religious  In 
struction  of  the  Negroes  in  the  United 


218  The  Negro  in  the  South 

States,"  Savannah,  1842.     Cf.  Atlanta  Uni 
versity  Publication,  No.  8,  passim. 

NOTE  23 

Cf.  Hart,  supra.  Note  too  the  decrease  in 
the  proportion  of  free  Negroes. 

NOTE  24 

Note  Dr.  Cartwright's  articles  ;  DeBow's 
"  Review/'  Vol.  II,  pp.  29, 184,  331  and  504. 
Cf.  Fitzhugh,  "  Cannibals  All." 

NOTE  25 

Cf.  Weeks,  "  Southern  Quakers  and 
Slavery,"  Bait.  1896  ;  Ballagh,  "  Slavery  in 
Virginia." 

NOTE  26 

There  has  been  in  the  North  a  generously 
conceived  campaign  in  the  last  ten  years  to 
emphasize  the  good  in  the  South  and  mini 
mize  the  evil.  Consequently  many  people 
have  come  to  believe  that  men  like  Fleming 
and  Murphy  represent  either  the  dominant 


Notes  219 

Southern  sentiment  or  that  of  a  strong 
minority.  On  the  contrary  the  brave  ut 
terances  of  such  men  represent  a  very  small 
and  very  weak  minority — a  minority  which 
is  growing  very  slowly  and  which  can  only 
hope  for  success  by  means  of  moral  support 
from  the  outside.  Such  moral  support  has 
not  been  generally  given ;  it  is  Tillman, 
Vardaman  and  Dixon  who  get  the  largest 
hearing  in  the  land  and  they  represent  the 
dominant  public  opinion  in  the  South. 
The  mass  of  public  opinion  there  while  it 
hesitates  at  the  extreme  brutality  of  these 
spokesmen  is  nearer  to  them  than  to  Bassett 
or  Fleming  or  Alderman. 

NOTE  27 

Cf.  "  The  Negro  Church,"  Atlanta  Uni 
versity  Publication,  No.  8.  212  pp.  1903. 

NOTE  28 

Twenty  good  references  on  the  ethical  and 
religious  aspect  of  slavery  and  the  Negro 
problem  are : 


220  The  Negro  in  the  South 

C.  C.  Jones,  "  The  Religious  Instruction 
of  the  Negroes  in  the  United  States,"  Savan 
nah,  1842.  277  pp.  12mo. 

R.  F.  Campbell,  "  Some  Aspects  of  the 
Race  Problem  in  the  South,"  Pamphlet, 
1899.  Asheville,  N.  C.  31  pp.  8vo. 

R.  L.  Dabney,  "  Defence  of  Virginia,  and 
Through  Her  of  the  South,"  New  York, 
1867.  356  pp.  12mo. 

Nehemiah  Adams,  "  A  South  Side  View 
of  Slavery,"  Boston,  1854.  viii,  7-214 
pp.  16mo. 

Richard  Allen,  First  Bishop  of  the 
A.  M.  E.  Church.  "  The  life,  experience  and 
gospel  labors  of  the  Rt.  Rev.  Richard  Allen. " 
Written  by  himself.  Phila.,  1793.  69  pp. 
8vo. 

Matthew  Anderson,  "  Presbyterianism 
and  Its  Relation  to  the  Negro,"  Phila., 
1897. 

Geo.  S.  Merriam,  "  The  Negro  and  the 
Nation,"  N.  Y.,  1906.  436  pp.  12mo. 


Notes  221 

M.  S.  Locke,  "  Anti-Slavery  in  America/* 
255  pp.  1901. 

W.  A.  Sinclair,  "  The  Aftermath  of  Slav 
ery/'  etc.,  with  an  introduction  by  T.  W. 
Higginson,  Boston,  1905.  358  pp. 

N.  S.  Shaler,  "  The  Neighbor :  The  Nat 
ural  History  of  Human  Contrasts  "  (The 
problem  of  the  African),  Boston,  1904. 
vii,  342  pp.  12mo. 

Atlanta  University  Publications  : 

Number     6,    "  The     Negro    Common 

School/'  120  pp.     1901. 
Number  8,  "  The  Negro  Church,"  212 

pp.  1903. 
Number  9,  "  Notes  on  Negro  Crime/' 

76  pp.  1904. 

E.  H.  Abbott,  "  Religious  life  in  Amer 
ica,"    A  record    of    personal    observation. 
N.  Y. :  The  Outlook,  1902.     xii,  730  pp.  8vo. 
W.  E.  B.  DuBois,  "  The  Souls  of  Black 
Folk,"  Chicago,  1903. 

Friends,  "  A  Brief  Testimony  of  the  Prog- 


222  The  Negro  in  the  South 

ress  of  the  Friends  Against  Slavery  and 
the  Slave-Trade/'  1671-1787.  Phila.,  1843. 

J.  W.  Hood,  "  One  Hundred  Years  of  the 
A.  M.  E.  Zion  Church." 

S.  M.  Janney,  "  History  of  the  Religious 
Society  of  Friends/'  Phila.,  1859-1867. 

D.  A.  Payne,  "  History  of  the  A.  M.  E. 
Church,"  Nashville,  1891. 

S.  B.  Weeks,  "  Anti-Slavery  Sentiment  in 
the  South/'  Washington,  D.  C.,  1898. 
"Southern  Quakers  and  Slavery,"  Balti 
more,  1896. 

White,  "  The  African  Preacher." 


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